


Pink Eye

by sirachamuchacha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Childbirth, Coming of Age, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Other tags will be added as the story progresses, Suicidal Thoughts, apocalypse au, they're teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-05-01 00:52:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14508930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirachamuchacha/pseuds/sirachamuchacha
Summary: Rick wakes up one day thinking he's the only person left on the earth. Then he meets a group of people he comes to know as his new family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys this was supposed to be a fic based off the movie Electrick Chidlren but that movie is so unique I didn't feel like I could pul it off PLUS as I was writing it didnt come across as natural or realistic to me.... but somehow an au about a selective apocalypse is..  
> anyways, i came up with this idea bc i was riding a bike n almost got hit by a car n i got pissed n was like dammit i wish i was the only person on the gotdamn bich of an earth but then i was like hell no nvm bc most of the time i love human interaction :)  
> anyways i hope u enjoy and the song in this chapter is I Only Have Eyes For You by THe FLamingos

Right in the middle of the road.

When Rick rides his bike in the wee hours of the night, sneaking out into the darkness while his parents are dead asleep, he sticks to the right side of the road and only ever glances to the left when he feels curious. 

He thinks, everyone sticks to a side- everyone being the cars, of course- so what if he stuck to the middle? 

His favorite bike route is the road down his block that had been freshly paved just a few years ago. Everytime it rains and water pools into puddles because of things like gravity and slopes, Rick is struck with an unreasonable amount of anxiety.

He knows in time the water will work its way through the strong cement, and that it’ll create bumps and ridges that will eventually turn into potholes, and one day his ride will no longer be silky smooth.

Rick never stopped to think that maybe he wouldn’t even be here when that happened. 

In these freshly paved roads of the suburbs he lives in, there is the smallest indentation in the center of the asphalt, almost like a faint impression of that giant yellow strip seen on highways and major roads. 

Rick thinks if he could just ride on that fine indentation, just confine right into it, he’d be left untouched by all the other cars. 

But if he did that on any ordinary night, he’d be hogging the road.

When Rick wakes up one day, and his mother is gone, and his father is gone, and he goes outside to see absolutely no one, to hear absolutely no human sound, the first thing he does after freaking out and trying to call 911 (only to remember there is literally  _ no one _ ) is ride his bike, right on that imaginary middle line, zipping downhill, fighting uphill, and feeling the wind work with him and against him.

He doesn’t have to yield, or stop, or look left then right then left again. He just goes, following the smooth roads until he gets tired and decides to go home.

Riding his bike is much more beautiful in the light of day.

And when Rick goes home, he finds peace in the emptiness of his house and the emptiness of his world. 

He sleeps outside on a blanket laid upon the grass, staring up at the stars and knowing he can’t be hurt by anything or anyone.

He doesn’t hear any bugs or animals; he wonders if they’re all gone, too. 

Maybe it's all some weird fever dream, or maybe he somehow landed his way into a comatose daze, but he figures he’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Because finally, he’s free.

-

Everything still works exactly as it had before.

Rick’s refrigerator is still running, the TV still works and so does the air conditioning, the wifi is faster than ever, and so on and so on. 

According to the TV guide, it's been a week since Rick woke up alone.

To say Rick was beginning to feel lonely was an understatement. 

Sure, his whole life his parents have basically put him on house arrest, but at least then when people were around and bustling everywhere, he had an undying hope that one day he could have a friend, or that he’d somehow escape his house and find people to make his life richer.

Now there’s absolutely no one around. 

His parents are gone and that’s good, but so is everyone else. 

Or so he thinks.

In the meantime, all he can do is find ways to pass the time- or, in other words, find things to give him a reason to live.

After all, he’s the only person left on earth, and what’s the point of living when you’re literally and truthfully all alone?

After thinking on it, Rick decides to do everything he’s ever wanted to do. 

Then, when he’s done, he’ll kill himself.

It was an easy decision, he finds, and so he writes down a list titled  _ Things I Want To Do _ .

There was only three things, and the first thing listed was simple: 

Drive. 

After watching so many movies and shows on TV, Rick found himself with a newfound desire to get behind the wheel, particularly after this one movie- Clueless, it was called- where one girl insulted her friend by calling her a “virgin who can’t drive”. 

Rick, who is also a virgin who can’t drive, felt a little insecure upon hearing that, and decided even if he just might die a virgin, at least he’ll die a well-driven one. 

So one day, he grabs his Mom’s car keys off the coffee table in the kitchen floor, and walks over to the garage. 

His parents never bothered to teach him how to drive. They said it was too dangerous and that he didn’t need to be going anywhere that wasn’t home, anyways. 

Rick couldn’t argue with that then, but now that his parents are gone he can do whatever the hell he wants. 

He doesn’t know which one is the gas or the break, but he learns in due time. He also learns that driving is stupid and hard but that it's kind of fun to crash into things. 

He crashes into a picnic table, his own picket fence, a mailbox, the curb- you name it.

And that’s just while he reverses out of his garage.

When he goes a little too fast on a speed bump, car bobbing wildly over the odd hump, it's the first time he can remember laughing in a long time. 

Not true, he was laughing at some stupid adult swim show last night, but it's the first time his laughs feels wholesome.

Maybe that should be a happy thing, but he thinks it’s kind of sad that he’s laughing all by himself. 

He returns home with a shriveled car, goes inside, and stares at his shaky hands for a minute or so before he decides to work on number two on the list of things he wants to do: Masturbate. 

Rick has never touched his own dick other than when he’s peed or washed himself. 

Occasionally, before his the era of parents, he’d latch onto a good sensation whenever he was doing the latter, and he’d always think about fully pursuing the act.

But he was always too afraid. 

Afraid that somehow his parents would find out and how humiliating that would be, how mad they would get.

So he always just turned the shower knob to freezing and willed his erection away. 

Now, in the post parent era, he heads to the restroom to wash his hands and get them as clean as possible for what he’s about to do. 

When he sees his reflection in the mirror, he sees shame staring back at him; A disgusting boy who’s about to do an ungodly thing. 

He shakes it off, wipes his hands free of water droplets, and then heads into the living room, where he sits on the couch and grabs for the remote. 

Just the thought of what he’s going to do and all the forbiddenness that it holds in his life has Rick growing with arousal. 

He swallows hard, moving a hand to rub at himself over his soft cotton shorts as he uses the other hand to flip through the TV guide, looking for  _ those  _ channels. 

By the time he gets to them, he’s at full mast, twisting his hips in his seat as he grinds into his own palm, stifling his moans with a bite to his lip as if he’s not the only one left on this planet.

Rick picks the first option he sees, doesn’t even read it, and immediately he’s met with an eyeful of skin- glistening, sex flushed skin- and an earful of dramatic, feminine whines and overtly masculine grunts.

Rick blushes furiously, he feels like he might pass out he’s blushing so hard. He knows he probably shouldn’t be watching this, but he  _ can _ , and these strangers bodies are so beautiful and perfect that he can’t stop staring.

Frantically, he digs his fingers past his waistband and tugs off his shorts, hurrying to free his legs of their confines, boxers and all.

He loves how his bare skin feels against the soft material of my the couch, how free and how naughty it feels. 

That feeling alone has him leaking, and as he stares at the clear bead of fluid gliding down the tip of his red cock, he is in awe.

Quickly he wonders  _ what is my body doing? _ before he hurries to catch it, feeling the silkiness between his fingers and figuring it all out.

This is why those people are so glistening- that and something else, maybe, but Rick doesn’t know what. 

Rick closes a tight fist around his length, like how the girl does to the guy, and begins to finally stroke himself.

It feels so good Rick nearly cries, but instead he settles on keeping his sight tear free for the movie.

Rick feels it building, somewhere deep in his gut, feels his breathing quicken and his stomach and thighs clench as he watches the girl swallow down the length of the mans cock, and whimsically he  fantasizes about what that could possibly feel like.

His wrist burns as he strokes himself impossibly fast, hips canting up to try to match his timing.

The sight of the girls pretty lips around that big cock only add fuel to the fire.

But suddenly, in this alternate porn world, another man walks in, and of course, like any human would be, is stunned by what he sees but also… aroused?

Rick pauses, pays further attention to the cheap plot and figures out the intruding man is the husband of the guy getting his dick sucked, and Rick is stunned first of all because wow he’s gay… that’s cool, and second of all because if Rick walked in on his husband getting his dick sucked by a girl he would be less than elated and very far from aroused.

But Rick’s hand proceeds as the new guy begins to suck his husbands dick and the girl watches with elation, rubbing herself just as Rick is doing on his side of the screen.

A moment later, Rick is coming, and there’s so much mess everywhere that he’s not sure what to do.

In the end, just takes his shirt and rubs it away, and lays there slumped as his fuzzy mind begins to think.

_ That porn couldn’t have been that realistic, right? Are all gay people like that? What about bisexual people? There’s no way… I like boys and I like girls and I’m not like that. I’ve never even had sex before... _

Then Rick realizes he’ll never get to come out to anyone, and by anyone he means his parents, because it's not like he had anyone else besides them.

Maybe that’s a good thing, considering how they were.

He supposed that’s one good thing about being alone- never having to be vulnerable or honest with anyone- not even yourself.

It's not like Rick has ever had the chance to be those things with anyone in the first place, and soon it won’t even matter.

So he laughs, a soft chuckle with a bit of a melancholic bite, and looks down at his fully wilted cock before he closes his eyes, and listens to the flurry of moans still flowing from the TV to his ears.

And he thinks,  _ Mom, Dad… I’m bisexual. Sorry. I hate you both. _

Then he pushes the thought of them away and touches his cock again, procrastinating his self proclaimed fate by pursuing rounds of fruitful masturbation until it starts to hurt and he has to stop.

He falls asleep naked on the couch.

-

The next morning, he wakes up to two things;

the sun shining in his eyes, warming up his face, peaceful and normal.

And the sounds of a puppy yapping softly, tiny barks muffled by the barrier of his house.

Rick is guarded by the soft blur of his mind in the morning and the utter confusion of hearing another lively sound.

But as soon as it hits him, his crumpled brow moves into slight alarm.

He all but jumps off the couch, remembering his nudity and scrambling for his shorts, leaving his heavily cum-stained shirt for dead as he heads towards the sound outside his front door.

He stands beside the door with caution, listening for any other noises as he presses his ear against the wall, but all he hears is the small animal.

Then he lets his guard down, opening up the door just a peep, and immediately a sniffing snout pops in between the gap.

Rick gasps at first, taken by surprise, but then chuckles at the silliness of the animal.

As soon as he’s letting go of the door, the puppy is pushing its way inside, filling Rick’s house with the sound of its erratic nails scratching against pristine hardwood as it whizzes around with its puppy-like excitement.

Rick watches the animal with wonder and maybe a bit of confusion until it tires itself out, and comes to lay across Rick’s idle feet.

“Where did you come from, buddy?” Rick questions, bending down to stroke the golden coat of his newfound friend.

His voice feels heavy coming out of him. It feels odd to talk so conversationally, even if it is just to a dog.

The puppy, of course, says nothing, but Rick turns to the jingle of its collar to try and find an answer.

The shiny metal tag reads  _ Burrito _ on front, and on the back is an address Rick doesn’t know the whereabouts of.

“Burrito…” Rick says pensively, and the dog perks its head up at the sound of its name, “How are you even alive?”

Burrito just continues looking at him, head crooking as if to shrug before going back to nonchalance.

Rick hmphs.

He supposes now he has a friend. You know, like that old saying.

But still, he can’t let that get in his way of completing his minimal bucket list.

So he picks Burrito up in his hands, and heads towards the stairs.

-

The third and final thing to do on his list was simple and mundane.

Rick wanted to go down into the basement for the first time ever.

All of his life, his parents have never let him go down there, and while he could sort of understand the reasoning for not letting him drive (too dangerous, too much freedom) or not wanting him to masturbate (too indulgent, possibly sinful), he never quite understood them not letting him go down to the basement.

Because of it being off limits, all these years Rick’s been left wondering what’s down there.

His mind always wanders to the extreme- what else could he do other than daydream when he was always stuck in his house?

He thought maybe his parents kept dead bodies down there, or guns, or money, or maybe there was even someone being held hostage in there.

Maybe all his life Rick’s parents were horrible people, like murderers or robbers or predators and never let him leave because they didn’t want Rick to dirty their alibi somehow.

Maybe his parents were part of a cult and held rituals and seances and sacrifices down in the basement.

Rick’s head is running as he treads carefully down the rickety basement steps, his heart pounding as he searches for the light.

All of his anticipation is building and fizzing and bubbling up for God Knows What until he finally hears the flip of the lightswitch and the darkness recedes.

In the dim yellowy light, Rick is shocked at what he sees.

There’s nothing bad, nothing like the images Rick had conjured up in his mind.

There’s no proof of murder or of kidnapping or robbery or anything like that.

No, all that’s there is shelves upon shelves of records like the ones Rick’s seen in the magazines he’s been reading and the old movies he’s been watching. There’s a record machine, and a privy setup of large speakers and cabinets with knobs and buttons.

Rick’s never seen any of these things in real life before. Everything looks so antique and vintage that Rick feels he’s time traveled to the past and is living in another life. 

His mouth is agape as he submerges himself in the scene, turning and twisting with awe at the mere capacity of music in this room.

He snaps out of it when he feels Burrito squirming in his arms, so then he lets the puppy down, and explores further.

Skimming through the collection of records and CDs and cassettes and 8-tracks, Rick felt like all this media was a metaphor for everything he always wanted his life to be.

Vast, endless, colorful, diverse.

A bit of fire rises within his heart, and mentally he adds another thing to his three part bucket list.

Now, the last thing he has to do is listen to all of this music, every single last bit of it- and then he can go.

-

Rick lasts three days in his venture of clearing through all that music.

He so easily could’ve lasted way longer, maybe even finished listening to the entire collection in its entirety, but he was interrupted and he hadn’t expected to be.

For the past 72 hours he’d been doing the same thing, but no boredom of routine was creeping in on him.

He’d wake up, make some eggs, find food for Burrito, go watch TV in the living room as he ate, go out and crash his car some more after breakfast, then come back home and head down into the basement, where finally he would put on a record and lie on the couch with Burrito right by his side until the day turned to night.

Sometimes he’d get up and change the record or CD when it finished, other times he wouldn’t.

Some days he’d take a shower and jack off, other days he wouldn’t.

All he knew was that now, all he was living for was a good song, a good orgasm, and to keep Burrito alive.

After the second day of heavy listening and rummaging through shelves and crates, he finds his favorite record so far: a song by a doo wop group called The Flamingos.

(Through his listening he finds out a lot of his favorite songs seem to be the ones about love. Not that he even knows what Love feels like. But sometimes, those love songs are so moving and emotional that it makes Rick feel like he’s felt what these artists have been through, that he’s had his heart broken or made love for the first time or seen this and seen that).

He loves the song so much that on the third day he listens to it on repeat for as long as he can stand, and Rick can sure stand a lot, it seems. 

Letting himself be carried by the melody and the soft swing of tender voices, Rick nods off into an easy slumber, his unobstructed view of the ceiling fading away as his lax hand weakly strokes Burrito’s shiny golden head.

That’s the last thing he remembers.

When he wakes up again, body startling from the sense of being watched, he’s met with the sight of a young boy’s face.

It’s a split second, slowed down into sludgy goo by Rick’s adrenaline: The Flamingos still play- Rick takes in one quick gasp, and his eyes widen as they lock onto the strangers features.

Dark, dark hair, pale stubbly skin, and warm hazel eyes. 

Simple features; a fair noise, average mouth, boyish eyebrows, long eyelashes.

But Rick feels like he can’t breathe, his chest is full of so much air. He can’t exhale, can’t sigh out the gasp he’s just sucked up from the atmosphere.

He’s breathless as he looks into this strangers unwavering eyes. He all but melts into them.

All Rick hears as the stranger begins to smirk, as he begins to moves his lips and speak, is his favorite song and those lulling words so lackadaisical and soaked in reverb.

_ You are here _

_ And so am I _

_ I only have eyes for you. _

Negan, the stranger holding Rick in a trance, feels a sick sense of pride in the effect he’s clearly having on this doe eyed boy.

“Lucy,” he begins, a low and bemused affirmation, “We found him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for reading!! i hope u enjoyed and as always, feedback n constructive criticism are more than welcome !! <333


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry bout TYPOS

“Who are you?” Rick holds Burrito protectively against his chest, cowering into the corner of the couch.

As he eyes the stranger, his heart pounds heavily against his chest, both frightened and intrigued.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” Negan asks, amuse written as a smirk on his face as he teases the shaken boy.

Rick ignores it, “How did you….? How’d you even get here?”

“How did  _ you _ get here?”

“Why are you here? I’m the- I was the.. I-”

“Why are  _ you _ here?” Negan perseveres.

A girl sighs, “Negan, quit your shit.”

Rick whips his head towards the new voice. It belong to a short, stout girl with curly hair, and like the boy she accompanies, she’s glistening with sweat.

“Who are you?” Rick asks again, eyes widening and brow creasing.

She’s a lot less taunting, and her face shifts into empathy as she opens her mouth to speak.

But the boy beats her to it.

“Her name is Lucille and you’re holding her fucking dog, so hand him over.”

Lucille groans.

“Jesus Christ, can you shut the fuck up? Don’t you think I know how to talk for my damn self?!”

Negan is unfazed by her yelling, even if his eyes do get a little dimmer, and Lucille sighs out before she regains her demeanor.

“I’m Lucille, he's Negan, and that’s Burrito,” She says, “I have a group with me upstairs. They’re Good people, all our age. We’re not trying to hurt you.”

“There- there’s more of you?” Rick questions, his world tilting on its axis, “I thought I was….”

“We all did,” Negan cuts in, tone suddenly solemn.

Rick looks over at him, studies his blank face. Again he finds himself gawking. He shakes his head clear.

“How did you find me?” Rick asks instead.

“We saw a fresh puppy shit on your front lawn,” Lucille says.

“And we could hear the fuckin’ music blocks away,” Negan adds, “The Flamingos? Are you fucking kidding me? I liked it better when you were playing fuckin’ Richie Valens all damn day. I mean, at least there was some variety.”

Lucille rolls her eyes, “Don’t listen to him. He has shitty fucking taste.”

“Says the one,” Negan retorts.

“Yeah, maybe I  _ did _ have shitty taste,” she says after a scoff, “but not in music.”

Negan’s face goes sour, twisting in a grimace.

Rick senses pain in his expression.

Negan feels eyes on his face, and when he turns, he sees that kid staring at him with so much earnesty it offends him. 

“Can I fucking help you, kid?” He spits, “Stop looking at me with them big ol eyes, alright?”

Rick averts his gaze, looking down.

“I’m not a kid,” he murmurs.

Negan scoffs, “What was that? Not a kid, huh? Then what the hell are ya?”

Rick tilts his chin up, warily meeting Negan’s eyes, and then Lucille’s.

“Rick. I’m just Rick.”

Things are quiet for a moment- a moment in which Negan feels slightly guilty for embarrassing Rick, and a moment in which Lucille weighs Rick’s assets in the quick of her mind.

It ends when Burrito lets out a needy whine.

“Well, Rick,” Lucille says, a timid smile on her face, “Can I have my dog back?”

Rick gives her a shrug of the lips with slight remorse before his eyes turn to Burrito. His heart tugs at the thought of having to return the puppy; he’s built such a strong bond with Burrito even after just a few days.

“It’s only fair, right?” He says, handing over Burrito, “Probably misses you more than anything.”

Lucille takes her dog, thanking Rick for watching over him.

Negan stands by idly, staring blankly at Lucille.

Rick wonders why.

When the girl begins to climb up the stairs towards the first floor and Negan follows behind, it doesn’t occur to Rick that maybe he should follow, too- or that they’re inviting him.

He thinks they’ll leave and that’ll be it.

But as Rick turns back to the idle record on the turntable, the stairs stop creaking, and Rick remembers as soon as Lucille opens her mouth.

“Come meet the others,” she says.

-

Rick has never seen so many people in his living room.

It’s both exciting and terrifying, and their presence is so strong and together that Rick almost feels like he’s a stranger in his own house.

Along with Lucille and Negan there’s Michonne, the true founder of their group. She started searching for survivors the moment she realized she could not accept being alone. 

So she vowed to search for people high and low, even if she died never having found a single soul.

Luckily that wasn’t the case, and that same day she found Andrea. For a long time, they were the only two.

“ _ We only had each other _ ,” were Michonne’s exact words and with the way she said it, accompanied by the way she held and squeezed Andrea’s hand, Rick knew they were a couple.

After that dry spell, Michonne and Andrea found Negan and Lucille, who used to be together just a little while before the end of the world, but are now tensely broken up. It gets a little awkward when that subject gets brought up.

After that came Glenn and Daryl, then Carol, then Maggie and Beth, then Noah and Tara and Rosita, and lastly Siddiq.

As he listens in on their story, Rick wonders if he’s their newest addition. He doesn’t know if he wants to be. He thinks he wouldn’t know  _ how _ to be.

“That garage you have,” Michonne says, walking around Rick swiftly, surveying the surroundings around him as she does- as if Rick’s home could be the deadliest place alive.

Really it's the most boring, which could be a privilege. If only she knew. 

Still Rick wonders why she’s so defensive. 

“There any cars in there?” 

“Yeah, um, just one but uh, I don’t think it would- I don’t think it’d be a good… idea. Its not a good car, it’s just… not good.” Michonne eyes him with a fierce brow, her suspicion high and her bullshit tolerance to an absolute minimum. Even if she were not so intimidating, she’s still gorgeous and that alone would have Rick stuttering. He’s never talked to a girl his age up until a few minutes ago.

“And why’s that?” Michonne questions, head tilted and dark eyes squinted.

Rick swallows deeply, “Because I- because I crashed it,” he admits.

He’s only half looking Michonne in the eye, but the girl isn’t staring at him like how she was before. Now, all of her hardness has disintegrated into dumbfoundedness, like she can’t quite place Rick at all.

From afar, Negan lets out a sharp, high pitched series of giggles, snorting and hiccuping.

“Aw, c’mon, Michonne,” he smirks, “Go easy on him! He’s just a little baby.”

“Shut up, Negan,” Michonne says over her shoulder before she lets out a sigh, crossing her arms as she lets her gaze settle on Rick again, “Show us the car,” she says, gentler now.

Rick nods carefully, and Michonne gestures for him to lead the way. 

Hearing steps behind him that aren’t a puppy’s paws is weird, especially when there’s so many of them.

It sounds like a bunch of erratic cadets marching, and he doesn’t feel fit to be one of them.

-

“ _ A FUCKING BENZ?? _ ” Negan bellows, verbally and physically exhibiting what everyone’s feeling and thinking, “YOU CRASHED A  _ FUCKING MERCEDES BENZ??” _

Rick goes impossibly red, turns away from everyone’s ghastly looks of complete surprise.

“Yeah, is that… bad?”

Negan guffaws, “It’s a fucking Benz!”

Rick furrows his brows, “Are they expensive?” He asks.

At that Negan bangs his head against the tinted window of the driver’s seat. 

“Some spoiled brat you must be,” one girl chimes- Rosita, Rick remembers. 

She has the same strong look on her face as Michonne, but unlike Michonnes hers is not guarded, just astringent and bitter.

Rick feels guilty. He wants to say he didn’t know, but he’s not sure that would make him sound any better.

Michonne gives the girl a practiced look, scolding like a mother.

“Still looks drivable,” she says definitively, “and we have our own cars. This’ll do fine.”

Apprehensively, Rick says, “Fine for what?”

“We’re looking for people, other kids around our age. We haven’t had to go out of town yet, but we’re collecting cars in case we have to,” Michonne pauses, “Do you know anyone who could still be around in this city?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Davis,” Rick says, like they’d even know who they are, “they used to come over all the time. They’re really old, they could- they could really use some help.”

Rick stutters when Negan starts laughing again, loud and obnoxious and triggering a litter of chuckles from the group.

Michonne doesn’t laugh, neither does Andrea of Maggie or Beth or Glenn or Lucille or Siddiq.

“Our age, Rick,” Michonne reminds him solemnly.

“Oh,” is all Rick says, trying his hardest to ignore the sounds of mocking laughter.

“Y’all stop laughin’,” Beth says after watching Rick awhile, voice irritated, “We’re in his house, standing in his garage, and y’all have the audacity to laugh at him? Count your blessings. We’ve been treated way worse. Before  _ and _ after this.”

“She’s right,” Andrea agrees, and Maggie nods firmly.

“Do you have a friend, Rick?” Maggie asks, “Anyone you might wanna find?” 

“If I did I would’ve been looking for them already.”

Things go quiet for a moment.

Then a wheeze, yet again, from Negan.

“...Well that’s the saddest shit I’ve ever heard!” He manages, wiping tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes. 

“Enough!” Lucille spits, jaw clenched as she glares at Negan.

Burrito cowers and whines in her arms, frightened by her energy.

Negan quiets down.

It seems Lucille’s the only one Negan regards with even the slightest bit of seriousness.

Michonne clears her throat, and then says, almost practiced, “We’re going out to look for more people. Do you want to come?”

Rick fishmouths, “Uh, okay… sure.”

Michonne nods, then looks back at her group. 

Suddenly everyone begins to shuffle, moving into what seems to be their own designated partnering. 

“We all have our own groups,” Michonne explains after one look at Rick’s face, “You’re paired with Negan.” 

Hearing those last words, he thinks it’s something like fate. He feels like a schoolboy who’s just been assigned lab partner with his crush.

What he doesn’t know is that new members are always paired with Negan. It’s somewhat of a test to see how much one person can handle, how well they’ll fit into the group, and to gauge one's demeanor.

That’s why Negan doesn’t complain like Rick thought he might. 

He’s used to being a test subject, but for the first time, Negan is actually  _ not _ looking forward to this pairing.

He’s not sure he can annoy Rick as much as Rick annoys him.

-

It's a quiet car ride, full of tension and staring.

The latter of which comes from Rick.

As Negan drives behind the train of cars that make up his group of people, he’s not the one asking all the obnoxious questions, even though that’s usually his job.

Instead it’s Rick, and all his inquiries are a product of the incessant stares he’s showering Negan with.

For some reason (he knows the reason), Rick just can’t stop looking.

He stares at the boy’s ripped jeans and how they sit comfortably on his thighs, a loose but not too lose, knees peeking out of the broad tears, and his thighs mildly parted as he drives.

Naturally, Rick’s sights run to Negan’s crotch.

_ There’s a dick in there _ , Rick thinks, and his mind begins to wander slightly before he figures he’s being just a  _ little _ creepy, and shakes his head clear.

He moves his gaze further up north, until his sights land on Negan’s midriff and run along smooth shoulders and a rocking jaw. He’s chewing gum.

“Why are you wearing that shirt?” Rick asks suddenly, very little filter to him. 

He asks the question just as soon as he lays eyes on the slinky spaghetti straps of Negan’s black tank- just as soon as the thought comes to mind.

Negan side eyes him, weighing his tone like it's the gum on his tongue.

All he sees is big doe eyes and innocence he could easily tarnish with a single suck or lick or stroke.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, princess, but it's just about hot as balls in this buttcrack of a city. Even got me thinkin’ about cutting these jeans into jorts. Whaddya think?”

“Jorts?”

Negan’s patience with Rick is short lived.

“For fucks sake- jean shorts!” 

Rick furrows his brow.

“Oh… well I don’t know. I guess you should?”

Negan sighs.

“Rhetorical question, princess. You know what rhetorical means?”

“Yes, I do,” Rick says pointedly.

“Well shit!” Negan says, “How bout a gold fuckin star?  _ Not! _ ”

Rick just rolls his eyes, huffing as he crosses his shoulders.

“It looks like a girls shirt,” Rick says, “That’s why I asked.”

“Well that’s cuz it fucking is. Would you like  _ another _ gold star?”

Negan is defensive, obviously so. The shirt on his back is Lucille’s, but Rick doesn’t know that.

Rick goes quiet, but still his focus remains on Negan, and as he studies the boy further, his curiosity softens himself. 

Then he figures he can try this conversational thing again.

“Hey I have a scar, too!” Rick says as his eyes fall upon the thick pink scars parallel to Negan’s forearm, taking up nearly half the limb. 

There’s a matching scar on the other wrist.

“It’s on my nose!” Rick continues, “Can you see it? I got it from falling down the stairs.”

Negan stares blankly at his fists clenching the steering wheel, doesn’t bother looking over at Rick’s face.

“And your big shnoz broke your fall?”

Rick’s smile falters as he self consciously touches his nose, but he swallows down his offense.

“So how’d you get yours? I’ve never seen scars like that. They’re so big. They kinda look puffy.”

Negan gives Rick a look of no amuse, let’s it linger.

_ How dumb can this kid be? _

“Fell down the stairs, too,” Negan says bitterly.

Rick has a look on his face like he’s trying to put the pieces together.

“So you don’t have any best friends?” Negan changes the subject, “Not even anyone you know that’s around our age?”

“No,” Rick says, and when he senses Negan’s suspicions he adds, “I was homeschooled my whole life.”

“Explains a lot,” Negan hmphs, then asks, “You don’t know anyone with shitty parents?”

Rick raises a brow, confused by the question.

Negan shakes his head, sighs, “Why’d I even ask..”

Rick looks down at his hands and how they’re wringing in his lap. 

“Did  _ you _ have shitty parents?”

Rick shrugs. He was always told he should never speak badly of his parents, no matter how awful they were. Because they gave him life, regardless of how dull his life is.

A small voice in his head corrects him.

_ Was _ , it says, How dull your life  _ was. _

“They were okay..” Rick shares finally. 

To that Negan says nothing, but Rick hears him swallow thickly.

“So you woke up all alone with no one to look for- what were you gonna do? What  _ have  _ you been doing all this time? Just fucking around?”

“No,” Rick says defensively, “I’ve been, um, riding my bike and… driving. I’ve been listening to music, too, and… other things.”

“And you were just gonna do that until the end of time? Just sit there and rot?”

“I had a plan,” Rick admits, feeling obligated to explain himself, “I had a few things I wanted to do, okay? I had already done the first few and my last thing to do was listen to all the music in my basement, then I’d… then I’d kill myself.” 

Silence ensues, thick like Negan’s scars, and suddenly Rick gets a knot in his gut like what he's said may have been too much. 

He looks up and over and sees Negan’s veins bulge out around his white knuckles, trimmed fingernails digging into innocent leather.

Suddenly the car stops, parking on the side of the road.

Rick watches the cars in front of him trail ahead, and frightened he looks at Negan only to see the boy eyeing him furiously, as if he’s trying to figure out how to rip Rick apart from inside out, his jaw tight and clenched like a feral animal.

He thinks he sees tears glazing Negan’s eyes.

“What?” Rick says, and his shaky voice is nearly a whimper as he cowers beneath Negan’s gaze, eyes wide like saucers.

Negan’s face twitches, and without even knowing he reaches out and clutches Rick’s wrist, squeezing so tight it hurts and Rick lets out a crackled cry.

“Do you even fucking  _ realize _ what you just said? What that shit  _ means _ ?”

“I thought I was the only one alive!” Rick defends quickly, “I didn’t have anyone, anyways, it wouldn’t have mattered if I did it. I didn’t see any point just being there by myself, okay? Just-just leave me alone! You’re scaring me, let go of me!”

Negan looks down and notices his grip on the boy.

Then he throws Rick’s wrist back at him and turns to face forward, running his hands anxiously through his hair as he sighs out an angry breath, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Then he start the car up and puts it in drive, anger still apparent in all his actions. 

“You’re a spoiled fucking brat,” Negan seethes, furthering Rosita’s statement from earlier as he speeds to catch up to the car that’s heavy down the road, “I don’t even know why the fuck you’re here.”

Mercedes Benz, a big house, homeschooled,  _ and  _ okay parents- what more could anyone want? 

Rick sinks further into his seat, chin wobbling as he turns to face the window for the rest of the trip.

-

The group heads over to a small town just fifteen minutes away from Rick’s house. They don’t get to do too much searching, however, as the sun begins to set not two hours after they’ve arrived. 

Due to Michonne’s incentive, the group makes it a habit to wrap up their searching once it gets dark.

Rick asks why and everyone tenses up, and the ones who seem to have a more spiteful disposition towards him give him belittling looks. 

“Because bad people lurk around in the dark,” is all Michonne says, voice somber.

Rick’s mind begins to wander.

_ What kind of bad people? _

He almost asks, but he figures he shouldn’t, because maybe Michonne would get angry with him like Negan did. 

But still, on the drive back he wonders, and when they get back to his house he wonders. 

He goes into the kitchen for a glass of water, and while some people in the group follow him, others take their own path as if the house is their own.

Rick is too much in his own head to be bothered by it. Plus it's nice to not be accompanied by silence all of the time. 

“Rick,” a voice calls gently,  pulling Rick out of his zoned out funk.

Rick looks up from the reflective chrome of the kitchen sink and turns around. 

It’s Andrea.

“Yeah?” He says. 

Behind her head he sees Daryl sharpening a knife at the kitchen table with Negan lying his head down in the seat beside him, Carol messing with the knob of the radio on top of the refrigerator, Rosita rummaging through said refrigerator, Tara sitting on the ground untying her boots and sighing as she takes them off, etcetera etcetera.

Everyone’s making themselves at home.

“I know some people aren’t so polite,” she begins, “But on behalf of everyone, I wanna ask if it's okay that we stay here.”

Rick shrugs.

“Yeah, it’s.. It’s fine, but…” He swallows, “Why here? Why stay here?”

She smirks, “You’ve got a big house, Rick. We’ve got lots of people… and we’re only getting bigger.”

“All the houses in this neighborhood are big,” Rick counters, her smirk infectious just to the point where Rick feels it’s spirit inside of him. 

Her freckled nose crinkles, “Hmm. In that case, I guess it just might have something to do with you. I’ve got a feeling about you, Rick.”

“I heard that,” Michonne calls from the doorway, and both Andrea and Rick look over at the girl just a few feet away who’s wearing a teasing grin. 

Andrea smiles back at Rick, departing with a single nod before she goes to be with her girlfriend. 

Then Rick is left alone, and against the backdrop of conversation and inclusivity, he feels it so much more intensely.

He looks down at his feet, finishes off the rest of his water. 

A moment later, a carton of eggs is being smacked down on the counter beside him.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Rosita says, though it sounds like she wants Rick to mind, “but I’m using these.”

“It’s fine,” Rick says dimly, and he truly doesn’t mind. He just wishes Rosita didn't mind him. 

Quickly he slides out of the girl’s way, removing himself from the bustling scene of socialness and retreating back to the basement. 

-

Negan’s the last to get his food, and after a stressful yet somehow uneventful day, he’s become a little hangry. 

That being said, all he wants to do is sit down with his plate of eggs and fucking eat the shit out of them, then maybe take a shower and go to sleep. Nevermind that he’s doing that all inside of Rick’s house. 

“Rick’s not gonna eat with us?” Lucille questions, dropping down into the chair beside Negan just as the boy is in the middle of his pursuit of putting fork to mouth. 

Negan sighs deeply.

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” He shrugs, carelessly shoveling eggs into his mouth. 

If he does it a little too fast, it’s because he’s nervous. He and Lucille have been broken up for weeks and he still gets so nervous around her. 

“Well where is he?”

Negan scoffs, “What am I, his babysitter?” 

Lucille still looks at him expectantly for an answer.

So Negan sighs, stabs his fork angrily into yellow eggs as he shrugs, “He’s probably in the basement throwing some bitch fit woe is me pity party.”

When Negan looks up Lucille is smiling goofily at him, it hurts a little to see. 

“You uh,” she chuckles, “You got some egg on your-” she reaches out to move the stray piece of  food off his face, and as soon as Negan feels her shadow almost touch his, he shrugs away. 

“Don’t touch me,” he warns coldly.

Lucille moves back into her space and clears her throat.

Things get dull and awkward.

“Did you get any dirt? You figure anything out about Rick?” She asks, getting back on track.

Negan chews, swallows, “Kid’s a brat and an idiot. Told me he was gonna kill himself. Been homeschooled his whole life, real

fuckin privileged,  _ Blahblahblah _ ,” Negan rolls his eyes, “I really don’t even know why he’s here. He said his parents were okay, he seems pretty well off, he had a good home life-”

Lucille cuts in, “I wouldn’t say that much…” 

Negan quirks an eyebrow in question, chewing rapidly.

“Finish your eggs,” she concedes, “I have some things to show you.”

Negan huffs.

“This better be good.”

-

Negan’s Dad was a controlling asshole who thought Negan was the piece of shit that spawned from said asshole. 

Lucille’s parents were divorced and never paid attention to her.

Michonne got pregnant when she was sixteen, therefore her parents shunned her. Andre didn’t make it to this chapter of the earth. She takes it that must mean she was a good parent.

Andrea’s parents never could accept the fact that she was a lesbian, they always tried to change her. She could never be herself.

Daryl’s mom ran off only months after he was born. His dad was an abusive alcoholic drug addict.

Rosita’s parents wanted to put her in an arranged marriage somewhere deep in the bowels of Mexico, so she ran away.

Tara’s mother committed suicide after a battle with postpartum depression and her Dad always blamed her for it, even though she hadn’t asked to be born.

Carol’s parents were always fighting anyway they could. They fed her toxic images of what Love looked like.

Glenn could never meet the expectations of his parents, no matter how hard he tried. And he tried his hardest every day of his life.

Maggie and Beth’s mom died when they were just teenagers, and their father drank his life away without a care in the world for the daughters his wife left behind.

Siddiq fell in love with someone who wasn’t brown like him, and his parents shunned him. That girl didn’t make it to this part of the world.

Noah had a twin brother everyone, especially his parents, preferred over him. He didn’t make it this far either.

Lucille takes Negan upstairs into a room she says must’ve been Rick’s mother’s room.

She pulls out a thick planner from underneath a big brass bed, and heaves it open.

From the minute Rick was home from the hospital to the second the world ended, Mrs. Grimes kept a log of stats on her son.

Vitals twice a day, the exact time he woke up, the exact time he fell asleep.

She wrote meticulous entries on how she was worried about the obviously benign changes in his blood pressure or his blood sugar, about how Rick should be getting at least ten hours of sleep everyday and nothing more or less.

She writes about what he wore everyday, what the fabric were comprised of and how Rick’s skin reacted to it if it did, figuring out her sons skin type and and allergies to do all she could to keep her son from harm.

No TV, no internet, no going outside unless he was supervised,  but still nowhere outside their fence.

No processed foods, no parabens, no pesticides, nothing nothing nothing.

Rick was far from a spoiled brat.

He was sheltered, uncultured, lonely, bored, unsocialized, awkward, curious, naive, ignorant, weakened.

So many things, but not a spoiled brat.

His parents- or at least his Mom it seems, though his Dad was definitely an enabler- were obsessed with him. They didn’t want him to get hurt so bad that they never let him do anything on his own accords.

In other words, they never let him live his own life. 

When the rest of the group gets word of this, Rick finally makes sense to them, and to  Negan especially. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for reading!! i hope u enjoyed and as always feedback n constructive criticism are more than welcome <33


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took me like ten fukn years to get out ive been having a RUFF time ive been so uninspired and ive been using BTS to cope so thats what ive been doing sorry but also im not sorry  
> theres a shit ton of typos in this bich i can feel it but i just wanted to get this out SO BAD so i can feel productive n shit so here ya go  
> have a good day fellas

Coming up from the basement, turn left and just down the corridor is the kitchen.

Turn right and you’re met with the stairwell that leads you to the second floor where all the bedrooms are.

Negan comes down from Mrs. Grimes room, and as he drudges down the steps- everyone else left investigating upstairs- he regards them like an old fatigued senior citizen would.

His head turns towards the meticulous line of family photos that trail down the wall just as he does down the stairs.

Family photos.

Rick and his Mom and his Dad all plastic, polished, and sanitized with tight smiles. Every portrait looks so gray, like it wasn’t even taken by a professional, like all they wanted was a headshot.

And it was all just family portraits.

No typical happy family pictures of Rick at the beach when he was little, or at graduation, or with friends, or posing for a school sports picture.

It was awful, and upon first look it seemed normal to them all, especially Negan, because they had no idea what a _normal_ family even looked like.

They figured this must be it, but boy were they wrong.

Negan reaches the bottom of the stairs, and looks over the descending stairwell beside him, and the taunting basement door.

There was more that Lucille wanted to show him, stuff she was currently showing everyone else.

But Negan had heard enough, and he decided he didn’t want to learn about Rick from books and logs, but from the boy’s own word, just like he did with everyone else in the group.

Thing is he’s not sure his pride will let him go down into the basement and do that.

But then Negan thinks about Rick’s tone as he spoke to him in the car, and how he has no friends at all, and how he had wanted to kill himself.

 _Shit_ , Negan thinks as he leans against the corridor that leads to the kitchen, staring at some more pictures on the wall he’s facing, wondering how someone can take so many pictures that look the exact same.

He looks down at the looming basement door, and sighs.

-

Rick is rummaging through dusty records, laying as many as he can into the cold cement ground of the basement.

The covers shine dimly in the weak lighting of the room, and all the faces of these people on the record sleeves are illuminated in soft gray, making their photogenic smiles look so phony and funny.

He coughs as he gets to the older records, particles of dust and dirt flying everywhere, and briefly he thinks about going upstairs and getting a glass of water to clear his lungs.

But then he’d have to see people, he thinks, and even though it’s his own house, he doesn’t feel up to it.

This place has been his own prison going on nineteen years, he sees no chance of that changing.

Rick picks a record with the coolest cover art, plugs headphones into the turntable, and moves to sit beside the set up, his head leaning against one of the giant speakers.

The song feels good as it seeps in through his ears, relaxing almost. But as it settles, as a voice comes in, guitar whirling adlibs and curling sappy notes, Rick feels sad.

_And I'm glad to hold you in my arms, I’d have you anytime._

A small but strong part of his brain makes him see Negan in the images of his mind.

He wants a connection with someone so bad he’s seeing it in the first good looking person he’s ever seen in real life.

Rick hasn’t even known him a day.

Dismissively, he brushes all those thoughts away, and listens to the music for what it is, reading away at the back of the album cover.

He sees names like George Harrison and Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. He wonders who those people are, and he wishes Burrito was here to lay in his lap, but he’s upstairs too.

So Rick tosses the record sleeve to a side, and decides to get some sleep.

-

When Negan finally swallows his pride and heads down to the basement, it only seems typical of his luck that Rick is asleep.

He’s halfway down the stairs when he sees him, nodded off beside the record player, and he has an internal debate on whether he should just leave him alone.

But when has Negan ever been known to leave other people alone? Never.

So he settles onto the couch, and for a moment he watches Rick in his most vulnerable state. Negan think the boy just might be the only person who looks as naive and tender when awake as he does when sleeping.

He takes note of the headphones cradling his ears, and how they’re plugged into the turntable, and he wonders what Rick is listening to today. By the looks of what's spinning, it’s an actual album and not some measly single.

Negan looks to the right of the boys lap and gets an answer: George Harrison.

Seeing the name and having it run through his mind, he’s reminded of his time at home.

Of Sunday mornings when he was still in the single digits, listening to music while he made breakfast with his parents.

Life at home wasn’t always bad. Especially when he was too young to see it.

With a grunt, Negan picks his body up off the couch and makes his way towards the record player. He just wants to listen too; his intentions were not spiteful or malevolent.

But when he pulls the plug of Rick’s headphones, immediately the music comes out at maximum volume, and Rick jolts awake, hitting his head.

“Oh fuck,” Negan murmurs, hurriedly scrambling to find out how to turn the volume down as Rick clutches the corner of his head, “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Rick says angrily, getting to his feet but not moving anywhere else as he focuses on the pain pulsing through his head, trying not to cry as his eyes begin to water, “I know you don’t like me, I know I annoy you, I get it!”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I fucking swear,” Negan says, sighing as Rick goes to sit on the couch, wincing as he presses further into his wound, “Look I’m sorry, alright, _I’m sorry.”_

“Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what that means!”  Rick spits _,_ eyeing Negan with distaste, a small amount of blood slipping through his fingers, “ _You_ don’t know what that means!”

His words run right past Negan, because all Negan sees is blood and guilt begins to fill him.

“Let me look at your head,” he says calmer now  as he goes to sit by the boy.

“No!” Rick says, indignant, but Negan’s already pushing back curls and tilting Rick’s chin, assessing the damage done.

Rick flinches at the touch, flicks his eyes up to see Negan’s face just inches from his, which is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. So much so he finds his eyes unable to settle, running from Negan’s face to the floor.

“It’s not that deep, I don’t think,” Negan says, brows furrowed, tongue between his teeth in thought, “But then again, I don’t know shit about shit,” he meets Rick’s eyes, and now Rick’s finds his fleeting gaze being locked upon hazel eyes. Rick swallows hard and Negan quirks a brow, “Are you dizzy?” He asks Rick.

 _A little bit_ , the flustered boy thinks, but not in the way Negan’s asking.

“No,” Rick says instead, “You’re… you’re super close..uh, to me.”

Negan takes a look at their proximity, and inches away.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay,” Rick says, “I liked it.”

Negan guffaws slightly at his lack of shame, lips crooking into the semblance of a smile.

Rick flushes a sweet pink color, like he’s starting to learn. He looks down.

“Maybe I liked it, too,” Negan says, harmlessly flirting, and Rick’s head shoots up with an eager grin.

It occurs to Negan then that this kid has more than likely never been touched. He’s probably never had his first kiss or held hands with somebody let alone had sex.

Negan being that close to him, touching his forehead and moving away his hair, was probably the closest Rick has ever been to someone in a while, if not ever.

“Let me go get Siddiq,” Negan says, clearing his throat, “He’ll help clean that thing up.”

Rick watches as Negan hurries up the stairs, craning his neck like a cat.

When the boy returns with Siddiq, he senses a tense energy running between the both of them, but he chooses not to question it.

He figures all of the group feels weird around him anyways, what with him being the newest addition and the odd man out.

Siddiq takes a seat next to Rick, a first aid kit between them.

He pushes Rick’s hair back just like Negan had, and he’s so close just like Negan was that again, Rick isn’t so sure what to do with himself.

And yes part of it is because Siddiq is attractive and so is Negan, but part of it is just because of the proximity.

Having someone so close but not close enough,  Rick has a strong urge to just pull them into him as much as physically possible.

“The bleedings stopped,” Siddiq states as he wipes down the wound, “Quite a gash, but I don’t think it's anything out of my hands.”

Rick says nothing, but looks at him.

Siddiq looks back, but he can’t hold the gaze.

“So how did you get it?” He says, half asking Negan and half asking Rick.

Rick speaks up first, “I hit my head on that table corner when I woke up from a nap.”

“The music woke you up?” Siddiq asks.

“Yeah,” Rick says, “Negan turned it on.”

As soon as Rick finishes speaking, Siddiq has his head turned to Negan, an accusatory look on his face.

“What? It's not like I did it on fucking purpose!”

Even though he truly didn’t, Negan still sounds impossibly guilty.

Siddiq shakes his head and turns back to Rick, reaching into his kit.

As he further dresses the wound, Rick begins to get curious.

“How do you know how to do all this stuff?” Rick asks.

Siddiq swallows, “My Dad was a doctor,” he says solemnly, “I was supposed to be one, too.”

As Rick thinks, he realizes he doesn’t know what his Mom did. Or his Dad.

What was he supposed to be had the world not turned to this?

“Do you- do you know how to take vitals? My mom, she used to take my vitals everyday. It's been a while since I’ve done it, I should probably check to see if anything’s wrong.”

Siddiq freezes, mouth agape as he searches for words.

He looks back at Negan, who just looks glum and awkwardly down at his feet.

“You don’t have to check your vitals everyday, Rick,” Siddiq says, like he almost regrets having to say this, “You’re young and you’re healthy, you have no reason to. It’s… abnormal.”

Rick furrows his brows, “But… my mom..”

“I know,” Siddiq nods, his kind brown eyes full of empathy, “But you’re fine, I can tell.”

Rick bites the inside of his lip, likes he’s wary of Siddiq’s words.

“Look,” Siddiq says, extending his wrist out towards Rick, “Touch right here,” he directs, pointing to the spot just below his thumb.

Rick does, pushing two fingers against it, looking up at Siddiq to see if he’s doing it right.

“You feel that?” Siddiq asks just as Rick begins to notice, “That’s my pulse. I think as long as you can feel that at all times, you’ll be fine.”

Rick lets go of him, and now its Siddiq’s turn.

He grabs Rick’s wrist, and does the same thing Rick’s just done.

except when he presses his fingers against that special spot, Siddiq only feels the faintest impression of a pulse. So faint that he feels like he’s almost imagining it.

“Well,” Siddiq sighs, an amused smile, “No pulse. Guess you’re dead.”

A horrified, confused look takes over Rick’s face, and Negan barks out a laugh from his spot in the corner, where he’d been silent for most of the exchange.

Rick looks over at Negan like he doesn’t understand what’s so funny.

“He’s joking,” Negan says, sighing out with laughter, “Siddiq has a dry ass sense of humor, but oh my fucking god, you really fucking believe him?”

Negan wheezes back into laughter.

Siddiq laughs, too.

So does Rick.

-

Even when Siddiq leaves, Negan lingers, and Rick wonders why.

He asks so many questions, too, like he’s suddenly interested in Rick, and his tone is softer.

“Are you hungry?” He asks Rick, settling close beside Rick on the couch, a comfortable amount of space between them.

“No,” Rick says tersely, but he could certainly go for some food.

“You didn’t eat dinner,” Negan says pointedly.

“I know. I’m not hungry.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes!” Rick says, frustrated.

And a second later, Ricks fit is punctuated by his belly ripping a loud growl.

Negan huffs, smirking as Rick looks away.

Then he gets to his feet, heading towards the stairs as Rick watches shyly.

“Well c’mon,” He says, nodding his head towards the basement door, “I’ll make you some fuckin’ breakfast. You know, bon appetit and shit.”

Rick’s mouth twitches, urging towards a smile.

“How do I know you won’t poison me?”

Negan catches the hint of teasing in Rick’s voice, and it feels like Rick doesn’t even know he sounds that way.

“Guess you’re just gonna have to trust me, princess.”

Rick nods, “Okay,” and then he gets up to go follow suit.

Walking around his house so late at night, Rick feels the part of an intruder. He thinks he’ll see Rosita or one of them and they’ll cast one daunting look and Rick will want to scurry away- just another side effect of feeling like doesn’t belong.

But Rick and Negan don’t run into anyone, surprisingly.

Once in the kitchen, Negan goes to rummage through the fridge, while Rick settles into a seat at the table.

He taps his fingers against the hardwood, stained dark. But as he glances at his moving fingers, he sees the imprint of wet rings all around.

It reminds him people have been here, lived tiny parts of their life in here. It reminds him his Mom is gone, maybe dead- who knows what happened. Nonetheless, she’s not here to push coasters upon everyone, so now the table will wear rings as accessories.

“Where is everybody?” Rick asks, watching as Negan begins his work over the stove.

Negan gives a stunted pause, motions stuttering.

He swallows stiffly, then says, “They’re upstairs.”

“Why?” Rick asks.

_Is it because they know I’m down here?_

Negan shrugs, “I dunno, ki- Rick… It’s dark out, maybe they’re sleeping. People tend to do that kinda shit at night,” Negan smirks, “Well, that and other things… if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

Rick’s brows just furrow.

“What else would they do?”

Negan gives him a look, as if his expression is supposed to help Rick understand.

“C’mon, kid. You can’t tell me you’ve never heard your parents goin’ at it like animals? Not even once?”

Rick’s confusion earns a notch of horror, “You mean like having sex?”

“It’s called fucking, Rick.”

“Fucking?” Rick says, rolling the word over on his tongue.

It's not like he’s never heard the word used in this specific context, he has watched porn on TV after all.

It’s just hearing those words in the same context as his parents doesn’t seem realistic. And it sounds gross as hell.

“Yeah, fucking,” Negan smirks, tongue in teeth, and the way he looks at Rick is another thing Rick can’t comprehend.

“No,” Rick says, finally answering, “I’ve never heard them… fucking. I don’t ever want to.”

Negan huffs a laugh, turns back towards the stove, “Well that’s good.”  
And then things are quiet again, save for the sounds of Negan cooking.

Rick watches him briefly, but finds he gets bored and zones out. So he snaps himself out of it, and looks up at the ceiling.

People are up there, sleeping.

Or so Negan says.

Again Rick zones out, staring at blank white paint above his head, and he’s freed by the sound of Negan setting a plate down before him.

“Get it while it’s hot, princess,” Negan sighs out, heavily plopping into to the seat in front of Rick, “I just about worked my whole ass off slaving over that stove for ya, and I don’t do that for just anyone.”

Rick looks down at his plate.

French toast. Eggs. Orange slices.

Why is Negan doing all this? Why is he being so nice all of a sudden?

But most importantly, “Why does everyone hate me?”  
Negan gives a nervous laugh.

Rick has noticed Negan laughs a lot for different reasons.

“They don’t- they don’t _hate_ you,” Negan corrects.

“Yes they do,” Rick says, “I can feel it. You do, too.”

Or at least he did?

Negan goes quiet, looking down.

After a moment he scoffs, but its not berating. Just soft. “You don’t know what hate is, Rick.”

Rick doesn’t miss a beat.

“I’m learning,” he says.

Negan nods, acknowledging his words.

Then he just leans back into his seat.

“Eat your food, Rick.”

Rick does as he’s told and tries not to mind the fact that Negan is studying his every motion.

He doesn’t look up at his plate for a while, but when he does he sees Negan, thighs open wide and his forearms placed directly in his lap.

He’s looking down at his wrists, Rick notes, at the same puffy pink scars Rick couldn’t keep his eyes off of earlier in the car.

Rick watches as Negan rubs his thumb carefully against the raised skin,

He wonders if that pink skin feels more sensation than the skin that surrounds them. If it feels like an open ended nerve. It looks like it should.

Negan looks up then, sees Rick looking at his scars again.

Rick meets his eyes after a moment, his gaze soft upon Negan’s far too jaded expression. His face is hard like stone, Rick thinks, gorgeous like marble.

“Can I touch them?” Rick asks.

Negan just blinks.

He doesn’t say anything but he extends his arms towards Rick.

Rick doubles the offer and moves to sit beside Negan.

Negan stiffens slightly.

Rick reaches out, and carefully, wraps Negan’s wrist around in the loop of his thumb and index finger.

His hand is sturdy and his palm is broad. Something about it’s heaviness makes Rick’s stomach flush with warmth.

He runs his thumbs across the raised line, carefully caressing it.

It feels different, but not odd.

Rick notices how Negan’s fist clenches so hard to the point where he nearly trembles, and he thinks his theory is correct.

“How does it feel?” Rick asks.

Negan shrugs, shaking his head, jaw clenched.

“Does it feel different?”

Negan nods, but it doesn’t feel different in the way Rick thinks it does.

Rick continues to stroke Negan’s scars, fascination never lessening.

As time passes, Negan relaxes, Rick’s naive touch alleviating his tensions.

He sighs out, then says, voice neutral, “I tried to kill myself. That’s.. how I got these scars.”

Rick’s face floods with concern.

“You didn’t fall down the stairs?”

Negan laughs, an abrupt sound, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. His watering eyes.

“No, I didn’t,” he says.

“Why did you do it?”

Negan licks his dry lips.

“My Dad was a fucking asshole,” he begins, pausing, “He was forcing me into the army. I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t know any other way to get out of it. He was so- so… fucking persistent, and I felt like I couldn’t say no.”

Just a little over a day ago, Rick had a plan to kill himself; a decision made so casually and so thoughtlessly because he hadn’t a clue the seriousness of the subjects.

He understands why Negan blew up in the car when Rick had announced his plans, and he’s beginning to understand what killing yourself means, and the grave seriousness behind it.

“When did you do it?” Rick asks, looking up at Negan, thumb still rubbing.

Negan watches as he continues, looking down at the contact they share on a part of his body that Negan used to be so cripplingly ashamed of.

“A few months ago,” he says, “I was supposed to start basic training three days ago. So who knows where I would’ve been right now if all the parents in the fucking world hadn't hit the dust.”

“He was still gonna make you go? Even after…?”

Negan nods slowly, bitterly.

“Especially after that.”

Rick moves his thumb to the spot Siddiq showed him, and he feels for the thump of Negan's pulse.

“My Dad was a bitch. An old conservative veteran bitch.”

“My Dad was a veteran, too,” Rick says.

“Oh yeah?” Negan says.

Rick nods, biting on his lip as he recalls, “Yeah, he would… he would never look at me. If he did it was really quick. I,” he swallows, “I don’t know why he’d never look at me.”

Rick’s brow crumples with how it still perplexes him.

“It’s not your fault,” is all Negan says, softly.

Rick looks up at him, because that’s not what Rick had expected him to say, especially not in the way he says it.

Negan catches his gaze, sees what ails him.

“Why are you being so nice to me now?” Rick asks, “Why not earlier?”

Negan looks in Rick’s eyes a second longer, then he breaks gaze, staring down at his lap.

“The people that are here, Rick,” he begins, hiding behind the stringy strands of hair that partially cloak his face, “We’re here because of our parents.”

He forces himself to meet Rick’s eyes.

Rick gives him a confused look, ushering Negan to go on.

“You too,” Negan adds, “I know that now. Back in the car, when I said I didn’t know why you were here… I found out, and… and I'm sorry. I’m sorry that I was such a huge fucking dick to you when I didn’t know shit about you.”

“You found out? Found out what?”

Negan swallows, inhaling deeply.

“Rick… The things your Mom did- taking your vitals, never letting you out of her sight, keeping logs on you, all the shit that _we_ still don’t know about- it wasn’t normal. Not one goddamn bit. I know you think it was, because you’ve never had the chance to see it any other way, but… your parents weren’t good.”

Rick tenses, looking at Negan with a firm grimace.

Looking at Rick’s face, Negan nearly regrets having said what he did. But as he looks further, he sees Rick’s steely look dissolve into a puddle of thought, of realization, as his gaze shifts mindlessly to the side.

Negan hadn’t expected that to happen so soon, to see all of Rick’s reactions play out second by second on the canvas of his face, to see the boy learning and accepting right before his eyes.

Rick lets out the softest sigh, so soft Negan probably wouldn’t have heard it if he was anything but silent.

“Have you ever been to a store?” Rick asks, gaze wandering back to Negan, “Or like a mall or something?”

“Yeah,” Negan answers, and his tone is solemn because he knows where this is heading.

“I’ve never been to one,” Rick says, but his tone isn’t sad, “Not even to something small, like a gas station. My Mom said there was always too many people, that strangers were never good for me, and they had too many germs,” he pauses, a small quirky smile meeting his lips, “Now I’m living with strangers.”

“I can take you to a store,” Negan says, “or a mall. You can do shit like that now whenever you fucking want. We could go right now, fuck it.”

Rick offers a smile, “Thanks, but… I think all I want now is to sleep.”

“We can do that, too.”

“...We?”

Negan smirks.

“Don’t read too much into things, princess,” he says, getting up from the table, “That’s no way to live life.”

Without knowing, Rick’s eyes follow the suave sway of Negan’s body as he saunters away.

Rick can’t explain the droop in his energy when Negan says, “Gonna try my hand at getting back in bed with Lucille. Wish me luck.”

He listens to the sounds of Negan ascending the stairs, and fixates on the messy smears of food on his used plate.

-

Negan’s luck was slim to none, in reality. Though looking back, he really has no idea as to why he thought it would be otherwise.

He goes back up the second floor, scouting around the rooms and peeking in for Lucille.

She’s right where he left her- in Rick’s mom’s room- only now she’s bundled up in the bed, clinging far to one side while Siddiq clings to the other, backs to each other.

Negan thinks nothing of it, except that Lucille looks cute and warm and he wants to be next to her.

He creeps towards the bed, wedging himself between Siddiq and the girl stealthily enough that neither of them stir.

He wraps an arm around Lucille’s middle, tugging her in closer as he buries his nose in her mane of hair- and that’s when things go a bit awry.

Lucille sighs, settling into the touch and shuffling around to face Negan.

“I was hoping you’d do this,” she says dreamily, a sleepy smile on her lips, eyes peacefully shut as she lays her forehead on Negan’s chest.

Negan smirks, “Oh yeah, dollface?”

Lucille’s eyes go flying open at the sound of his voice, and she hurries out of the bed, leaving Negan confused.

“Get out! _What the fuck are you_ \- oh my god, just get out!”

Even in the dark Negan can see the way her face has darkened red with anger and embarrassment.

Siddiq startles awake, letting out a groggy, “What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to fuckin’ figure out,” Negan answers, just as Lucille blurts out an angry, “Nothing!”

The tension and awkwardness is apparent, thick as the comforter that Negan lies on top of.

“Anyways, uh…..” Siddiq begins, “Should I… give you two some space?”

“No,” Lucille answers, “Negan was just leaving.”

“Yeah and so was Lucille,” Negan replies.

Lucille gives him a questioning side eye, but it goes unseen as Negan grabs a hold of her hand, dragging her outside with him.

Although she doesn’t want to, she follows along, and they move just a few feet outside the room, lingering by the stairwell.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lucille whispers, looking at Negan with impassioned eyes, “ _You_ broke up with _me_ ,” she says, “So leave me alone. Do you understand? Leave me be.”

“Lucille,” Negan begins, a pained sigh, “You know I only broke up with you bec-”

“Because you were gonna kill yourself? Because you wanted me to be pissed at you so it wouldn’t hurt as much when you were dead?” Her volume rises, and she contains herself, “Yeah, I fucking know. You’ve told me so many times but those were shitty excuses and guess what? it still fucking hurt. It hurt even worse, maybe.”

Negan’s face breaks as he sees hurt fill Lucille’s expression.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because his pride cannot drop or sway.

He reaches a hand out to touch Lucille’s face, but she shrugs away.

“I would’ve listened,” she says, “If you had only told me what you were going through. I would’ve tried my best to help you, Negan.”

Her voice tightens.

“I couldn’t even comprehend it my fucking self,” Negan says, impetulant, “It didn’t even feel like my own fucking reality, how the fuck could I have _told_ someone else?”

Lucille takes a deep breath, steadying the burn of her pain.

“It’s better this way,” she says, though she has no proof, only the deep gut feeling of her intuition, “It was meant to be this way.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“Things are different now, baby. Life is fucking different now.”

“I know,” Lucille nods, “That’s why it's better like this.”

Negan says nothing but shakes his head, looking down at the girl in front of him.

Lucille doesn’t look back at him for more than a second before she turns to go back into the room.

He stands there even after the door shuts, and he listens to the sounds of Lucille’s voice mingling with Siddiq’s.

Then it all makes sense to him, and he feels resentment begin to sear him from the inside out.

After a moment it all just settles into a deep sadness, and a desperate longing.

_It's better this way._

Negan wonders if that’s really true, if him being so lonely and sad and fucked up is the better way, if that’s how he was meant to be.

Negan searches for a room to be apart of, but can’t find one.

He belongs with Lucille, he thinks. Siddiq doesn’t belong beside her.

But evidence goes to show he is obviously wrong, and he finds his only option to be the basement with Rick.

He ventures down there, posture lacking, and is left to wander around in the dark, scant music playing softly into the silence.

Negan uses his hands to guide him, feeling for objects and softening his bumps into things before he finally feels the arm of the couch.

Then he reaches out to find Rick, settling a hand on whatever part of the boy’s body he can find- it feels like a shoulder- and shaking it.

Rick lets out a confused whine as he hears the call of his name.

“Rick?”

“Hm?”

“How do you feel about some platonic bro on bro cuddling? Just for the night.”

Rick rolls onto his back, stretching out briefly as he furrows his brow, “...Plutonic?”

“No, _platonic._ ”

“That’s what I said.”

Negan rolls his eyes, “Anyways, just… scoot the fuck over, would ya? I’m not sleeping on the floor. No fuckin’ way.”

There’s a quick pause where Negan thinks Rick must be thinking about it, but really he’s just rubbing at his eyes, relishing in the odd satisfactory feeling he gets from doing so.

Then he yawns, “Okay,” and Negan squeezes in beside him, helping himself to a portion of Rick’s blanket.

As soon as Rick feels Negan’s heavy warm body pressed up against his, he realizes what he's gotten himself into.

His sleepiness subsides, and he feels his heart ribbit in his chest. He smells musky, like a boy, and Rick is scared to breath him in, scared he’ll like it too much.

“No luck with Lucille?” Rick asks, voice tight as he feels Negan’s knee nudge at the back of his own.

Negan swallows solemnly, saying, “No,” as he wraps an arm noncommittally around Rick’s waist, asking, “Is this okay?”

Rick’s breathing stills for a while, and Negan can feel it in the way his arm no longer rises and falls, but he says, “Yeah, it’s- it’s okay,” so Negan thinks nothing of it and continues pursuing his goal of sleeping.

He’s out within ten minutes.

Rick is dead tired, but it takes him hours to fall back asleep.

Negan’s arm grows heavier against his body by the minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope u all enjoyed!! thank u for reading and feedback and constructive criticism are more than welcome !! <333333


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY 4 TYPOS IM IN A HURRY

Negan wakes up to the sounds of life bustling about above his head, and he can’t tell if it’s still night or if day has broken yet. 

Rick has managed to latch onto him completely sometime during the night, and now he’s facing Negan in a way that feels far too intimate for someone he has hardly known for a day. 

Negan writhes around, trying to casually loosen the vice like grip of the boy’s arms around his shoulders, but that only seems to make Rick constrict him even harder. 

“Hey kid, wakey fuckin’ wakey, alright…” Negan murmurs, “Let go of me.”

“Hmm?” Rick hums, and he buries his head further into Negan’s chest.

Negan rolls his eyes. 

For someone who’s never cuddled before, he sure is good at it. 

“Let go of me,” he says, “I have a life to fuckin’ live. Your fridge to rummage the fuck through.”

Rick’s sleep muddled brain can’t do anything but think about sleep.

“Wait,” Rick mumbles, grabbing Negan’s arm and tugging it over his waist, “Just a few more minutes.”

Negan’s other arm is dead from where Rick is laying on it, he has to pee, and his mouth is dry as fuck. 

But he looks down at the boy holding him hostage and he can’t say no. He knows cuddling is awesome, and that Rick wants to hold onto it as long as he can, and that this contact could even be good for Rick and his social growth or whatever. 

Plus Rick is cute. Not that his looks have anything to do with his decision, but Negan’s always been partial to curly hair. Just ask Lucille. 

So he says, “Fine,” and he lets Rick burrow into him a little bit longer, nevermind that he lets his hand wander just above Rick’s hips before he falls asleep again, too.

An hour or so later, they both wake up again to the sound of someone barging down the stairs loudly. 

It’s Lucille, Negan sees, and of course it is. She never knows how loud she’s being until someone tells her she is. 

Once she reaches the bottom of the steps, she looks up to see a very guilty looking Negan cuddling a very dazed looking Rick. 

Her gaze goes from content to frighteningly numb in a matter of seconds, and she looks directly at Negan as she says, “We’re heading out soon. You two should get ready.”

Rick notices how she doesn’t meet his eyes, how she holds her gaze with Negan a little too long after she’s done speaking. He can feel the tension tethered between him, taut like a stretched rubber band. 

Oblivious to their situation, Rick feels the cause of tension is purely him.

When she’s gone and has left silence in her place, Rick looks over at Negan who looks far away from here, away in his thoughts.

“When you said you found out,” Rick begins, “Does that mean all of them found out, too?”

It takes Negan a while, but he nods yes. 

“Do they hate me more now? Now that they know how.. boring I am?”

Negan looks at Rick, full of concern, “What? Where did you- where the fuck did you get all that from?”

“Lucille didn’t even look at me. She seemed… mad.”

“Lucille is not  _ mad _ at you,” Negan assures, scoffing with disbelief, “and she doesn’t hate you either. I know her like no fucking other, so trust me, alright?”

Rick decides maybe he has no better option than to trust Negan. Still he can’t shake the feeling that he's a nuisance. He shifts in Negan’s arms, his body riddled with thought so that he can’t stay idle.

At this point, Negan doesn’t know why he’s still holding Rick, but doesn’t question himself any further.

“Let’s say she does, right? Let's say everyone in this goddamn house hates your fucking guts and wishes you were never born- which they don't!” Negan intervenes immediately when he sees Rick’s sparkly doe eyes diminish and dwindle, “But not everyone is gonna fucking like you. Okay? I don’t know if anyone ever told you this growing up, but it's just one of those things you can’t fucking help. Like your height, or the fact that your hairs curly or whatever. So just… be yourself and you’ll attract people like you. People that you’ll end up thinking are cool as shit.”

Rick nods his head, absorbing Negan’s young wisdoms. His eyebrows pinch together and he looks up, worried face inches away from Negan’s. 

“What if I don’t know who I am?” He asks.

The question leaves Negan sidetracked and speechless, and he doesn’t know where to look.

So Negan finds his eyes shifting down towards Rick’s lips.

They’re so pink they’re almost red, and they’re dried and chapped and bitten like they’ve been caught between Rick’s teeth even in his sleep. 

Rick notices Negan’s point of focus, and he blushes, rolling his lips together to conceal his mouth, feeling the dryness that subsides there. 

Negan shakes his head, clearing it. 

“Just.. do whatever the fuck you want,” he says, eyeing the boy with intent, “But make sure it feels right.”

Rick nods, eyes meeting Negan’s as he runs his tongue over his lips. 

Negan averts his gaze, and finally removes his arms from Rick. 

“I should probably go talk to Lucy,” he says, moving to get up, “You get ready. I think we’re partners again today.”

“Okay,” is all Rick says, a soft murmur as he watches Negan’s lithe body saunter up the steps.

He notices the tenting in Negan’s boxer briefs, the kind of tenting Rick himself always has in the morning, and feels a gut punch of arousal when he thinks about how close he was to that part of Negan just a few seconds ago.

Then he turns onto his back, and closes his eyes shut, conjuring up the memory of the feeling of Negan’s arms all around him and his warm body pressed against his. 

He pulls the blanket back and watches himself grow hard.

-

“Lucy,” Negan calls, hurrying down the halls to catch the girl, “Wait, c’mon! Let’s talk!”

“Nope!” Lucille says, practically running towards the nearest restroom, “Sorry, have to shit!”

Negan races to grab the door before she can close it, quickly sliding into the room and joining her inside before he finally shuts it, leaving them with some privacy.

“Fucking creep,” she mutters, though she knows she wanted Negan to follow her, “What do you wanna wipe my ass after I get off the pot? Hold my hands while I birth my goddamn shit?”

“You don’t have to shit,” Negan accuses, rolling his eyes, “You’re fucking jealous.”

“Jealous?” She scoffs, “Of what?”

“Don’t be so fucking vapid, Lucy. You know what.”

Lucille grits her teeth slightly.

She knows Negan’s talking about Rick, and while there is a bit of jealousy, she knows it's mostly irrational for her to react like that. Maybe it's just muscle memory.

“I’m not jealous of you and Rick,” she admits, and it’s mostly true, “That’s not why I’m upset.”

“Well then why the hell are you?”

“Because you’ve known him for a day and you’re cuddling him,” she says, “Do you even know what that could mean for him?”

Negan sighs, exasperated, “I told him it was just two bros cuddling.”

Lucille rolls her eyes, crossing her eyes over her chest as she eyes Negan heavily.

_ Two bros _ , she thinks, and it makes her smirk.

The amount of zest behind it makes Negan feel uncomfortable, but her expressions fades quickly into solemn.

“Do you know what that means for  _ you _ ?” She asks.

Negan makes a face.

“What are you talking about?”

“You like dick,” she says, so matter of fact.

Negan flushes a bright red, his body unable to hide the truth.

His mouth stays indifferent.

“I knew it,” Lucille says, slightly smug, and then, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Negan bites down on his tongue for a moment, then says, quietly, “What if my Dad found out?”

“I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“I don’t trust anyone that much.”

Lucille’s resolve breaks down a bit, and she looks down at her feet.

Negan notices.

“Don’t act so hurt,” Negan says, “I saw how you were around Maggie before you found out she was with Glenn. You didn’t trust me either.”

Lucille laugh a quiet, bitter laugh.

“I guess you’re right,” she says, “We weren’t together that long anyways.”

“A year isn’t long enough?” Negan asks, his turn to be hurt.

Lucille sighs.

“Apparently not.”

Things go stark with silence, and they can’t look at each other. But neither of them want to be the first to leave.

Instead they part when a meek knock on the door breaks them out of their own little world.

Lucille curses under her breath, knowing how bad being found with Negan in a restroom is gonna look.

Still she opens the door without a care, only to reveal a very confused looking Rick.

When Rick sees Negan behind the girl, a part of him goes dim.

“Oh sorry, I-”

“Don’t worry,” Lucille interrupts him, putting on a polite smile, “I was already leaving.”

Negan huffs a bitter laugh at that, but Lucille is already far gone by the time he does.

Rick still clings to the door, watching Negan.

“Well princess,” Negan sighs, clearing the heaviness from his voice as he moves towards the sink, looking at his slightly scruffy reflection in the mirror, “Where’s the shaving cream?”

“It’s.. it's in the medicine cabinet,” Rick says, “There’s a few razors in there, too.”

Negan looks at Rick through the mirror and sees the boy gawking at him with those big blue eyes before he quickly averts his gaze from Negan.

Negan smirks, “You can come in, you know. I don’t mind. It's your fucking bathroom anyways.”

Rick moves in closer, taking Negan’s word.

“I was just gonna brush my teeth,” Rick says, reaching for his toothbrush on the countertop.

“Good on you,” Negan says, moving to the side to share the mirror with Rick.

Rick does everything so sheepishly, Negan notes.

Before he puts his toothbrush in his mouth he glances at Negan through the mirror just to see if the boy is watching him.

When he sees that Negan is, he blushes, looking down as he begins to brush his teeth, smiling around his full mouth.

Negan laughs.

“You ever shaved before, Rick?”

This time when Rick looks up at Negan, he holds his gaze, nodding slightly.

“Only once,” Rick says, removing his toothbrush from his mouth so he can mumble a little less, “I’m basically hairless, so it was kind of pointless.”

Negan gives Rick a sly look, razor going still against his shaving cream clad cheek, “Hairless, huh?”

Rick looks away, breaking his mirror eye contact with Negan yet again as he resumes brushing his teeth.

Negan eyes him for a moment, assessing him as his curiosity gets the better of him.

Is Rick flustered because he doesn’t know how to turn down flirting, or because he doesn’t know how to reciprocate? 

Negan decides to just flat out ask, because that seems to be the way Rick always approaches things.

“You like boys, Rick?”

Again Rick freezes, and as he looks up at Negan’s reflection, a drop of toothpaste falls from his  mouth.

Negan moves to the side some more, lets Rick finish up the job.

When his mouth is clear and clean, and he’s thought a bit about whether he should lie or not, Rick finally answers.

Negan, who’s gone back to being front and center of the mirror, shaving his face, thinks Rick won’t respond and doesn’t mind. 

He also doesn’t mind how Rick lingers by the countertop, watching him.

“Yeah, I do,” Rick finally answers, and he says it like Negan didn’t ask his question five minutes ago, “Like boys, I mean… Do  _ you _ like boys?”

Negan rolls his lips together, suppressing a smile.

“You bet your ass I do, Rick,” he says, making the boy grin as he leans against the countertop.

Rick has never been flirted with, but he has a feeling that that’s what’s going on between he and Negan right now, and that feeling gives him a sense of bravado. 

“You were the first boy my age that I’ve ever seen,” Rick confesses. 

Negan falters. At this point, he shouldn’t be so surprised by what Rick tells him, but he can’t help his astonishment. 

Maybe the confession even makes him sad, but those are emotions he doesn’t want to let show. He doesn’t want Rick to feel pitied.

“Oh yeah?” Negan smirks, keeping focus on his own reflection in the mirror, “Did ya think I was fuckin’ cute or what? Be careful how you answer this question, Rick.”

Negan expects Rick to go all blushy and look down and be silent. 

Instead, the boy just smiles wider with his happy red cheeks as he says, “Yeah. I did.”   
That catches Negan off guard, to say the least. 

He turns to meet Rick’s eyes, and unintentionally mirrors Rick’s soft smile. 

-

Rick notices everyone treats him a lot nicer. 

Even the ones who had already been treating him nicely, like Michonne and Andrea.

Even Rosita, who gave him a tight smile before Rick boarded the beat up Mercedes with Negan.

Even Daryl, who Rick had been told never really acknowledges anyone, gave Rick a slight nod of the head.

It perplexes Rick as he sits in the car, and the change in his expression must be evident, because Negan brings it up.

“Your head hurting you?” Negan asks.

He has one hand on the steering wheel and the other reaching out to push Rick’s hair away and get a good look at his wound.

“No,” Rick answers.

“You’re making a face.”

Rick hmphs, disbelieving until he pulls down the visor mirror and sees that he is in fact making a face.

His brows are furrowed as if by default, pulled up with worry.

He reaches to touch his forehead, rubbing it to smooth out the wrinkles that just come right back.

Then he flips the visor up, and says, “They’re being too nice to me. I don’t want them to be nice to me just because they feel bad for me.”

“That’s not why they’re being nice to you, Rick,” Negan says, “They’re just… they just don’t know how to act now that they know they’re the first people you’ve ever talked to besides your parents. I mean, that shit’s fucking crazy. They’re just taking time to process that.”

“But I…” Rick sighs, “Okay.”

Rick does his best to nod and doesn’t speak a word more, instead opting to pick at the thick denim of his jeans. 

Today, their group goes farther than they did yesterday. 

They skim the little town they had previously, but don’t stay too long as they decided it was futile to spend so much time in a hopeless place. 

Rick had expected to go home after that. What he hadn’t expected was to end up in a mall. 

He thought malls only existed in Clueless, but as Negan shakes his shoulder to wake him up and his eyes open to see the biggest building he’s ever seen in his life, he is pleasantly mistaken.

Rick is distraught, facial expression slack with shock, but Negan sees in his eyes that  _ where are we? _

Negan just smirks.

“You ever been to a mall, princess?”

Rick shakes his sleepy head, “No.”

“Well,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt, “consider today your lucky fucking day.”

They get out of the car and regroup with the others.

As the talk amongst each other, they all seem pretty excited about being there, and Rick absorbs the mindless chatter with confusion.

“What are we doing here?” Rick asks, all too curious as usual, “I thought we were looking for people.”

They all look at each other as if they’ve been caught.

Then Rosita says, “Think about it… you wake up alone with no adults and barely any people our age around, where do you go? The mall.”

She’s trying her best to not let her usual attitude slip into her tone.

Even though it’s attitude she uses with friends, she doesn’t want Rick to get the wrong impression. 

“Yeah,” Tara agrees, “I mean, my first instinct was to repent for my sins and beg God for forgiveness in hopes to reverse being left behind, not go to the mall and see what’s up… but I’m sure once I started craving a soft pretzel or wanted to sit down on a bench, I would’ve gone…. Right, guys?”

Her words are met with faint mumblings of indifferent agreement.

“... God, now I’m really cravin’ one of those pretzels,” Beth sighs, and as soon as she says it, everyone else erupts in  _ ooohs _ and gluttonous smirks of interest.

“Is there a pretzel place here?” Maggie asks.

“Yeah!” Noah says, accidentally yelling because he’s so excited. Glenn claps a hand on Noah’s shoulder as the wide eyed boy says, “I used to work there!”

“Wow, you sound too happy about that,” Lucille laughs, causing everyone else to erupt in laughter.

Including Negan, who when he doubles over, reaches out to clutch Rick’s arm without even knowing.

Rick stands there awkwardly, feeling oddly left out even though he’s sure they were trying their best to include him.

Michonne notices this and says, “Rick? Have you ever had a mall pretzel?”

Negan’s hand trails down Rick’s arm as he moves away, fingers indirectly caressing Rick’s hand.

Lucille notices both the action and the way Rick fumbles with his breath when it happens.

“Uh.. no,” Rick says.

Everyone is astonished by this confession, but Noah especially.

His eyes widen to a new degree and his mouth forms the most perfect, gaping oh shape.

Then he moves towards Rick, shaking his head and grabbing the sheltered boy’s hand as he says, “Don’t worry bro, I got you. After you try these pretzels, it’ll all make sense, I promise you,” and guides Rick hurriedly towards the entrance of the mall.

-

Six pretzels later and Rick understands the hype.

“Well?” Maggie says with a huge grin after Rick has taken a bite from his first pretzel, “What do you think?”

The look on Rick’s face is answer enough, but still she wants a full monologue.

“ _ Wow _ …” Rick says, looking at his bitten pretzel with a marvelled expression, “It’s so… soft… and warm! What the…” his brows furrow as he takes another bite, “It’s like a hug…”

Everyone laughs at Rick’s genuine review, and Noah gets up from his seat to pull Rick into an embrace that’s so energetic and happy, all because Rick liked his pretzels. 

After a bit, everyone starts to walk around the mall for the sake of scouting, Rick supposes. It doesn’t feel like they’re scouting so much as just having fun in an abandoned mall.

“All work and no play makes us bitches some dull bitches,” Negan says when Rick voices his thoughts on the matter, and how can he argue with that? Especially when Negan’s lingo confuses him. 

They stop in front of a Mall map, and Rick squints at all the tiny letters. 

“Anywhere you wanna go, princess?” Negan asks, “The possibilities are almost fucking endless. We even have a Claires still. I could pierce your fuckin’ nipples for ya.”   
Rick ignores Negan’s last offer and focuses on the first, thinking earnestly.

“I kinda want some new clothes,” he says, “I never really liked the clothes my Mom bought for me. Not that I had a choice. But when that day happened and no one was around, I was sort of excited to finally get to pick out my own clothes. Only it wasn’t that fun with the options I had.”

Negan gives Rick a once over, taking in his ensemble. He hmphs.

“White t-shirt and some jeans,” he muses, “Can’t go wrong with a god damn classic.”

Rick shrugs, “I guess. It just… I don’t like it.”

Negan grabs Rick’s hand, strolls with him towards the escalator.

“Well, do you have an idea of what you might like?”

Rick feels giddy from the contact, and maybe he forgets how to speak for a second, but he doesn’t miss too much of a beat when he answers.

“Have you ever seen Clueless?”

Negan huffs a laugh, slightly bitter.

He’s seen that movie more times than he can count. It’s Lucille’s favorite.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Do you remember Elton? I like how he dressed,” Rick says, “Except for the vests. Those were… not great.”

“Ok,” Negan nods, cause they’re getting somewhere, “What did you like about how he dressed?”

Rick thinks, then speaks, “I liked the colors. Like the browns and the greens. Real earthy tones. Oh, and the sweaters. Those were nice.”

“Rick, it’s ninety degrees outside.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…” he says, and then, “Have you ever seen The Perks of Being a Wallflower?”

Negan sighs, shaking his head, “Ooh boy… yeah, I have.”

“It was so sad,” Rick says, and Negan can hear the pout in his voice.

“That’s an understatement.”

“Good movie, though. I like how Charlie dressed. I felt like it was pretty realistic, especially compared to the boys in Clueless,” Rick thinks on it some more and then says, “I like how Patrick dressed, too. You can tell he put a little more thought into what he wore.”

“Just cause he wore shirts with buttons?” Negan teases, smirking over at Rick.

Rick chuckles, squeezing Negan’s hand, “Yeah,” he says.

Negan laughs, too. Soft and gentle.

“Mary Elizabeth had nice style, too,” Rick continues, “She kinda reminds me of Lucille if Lucille cut her hair that short.”

Negan snorts at that.

“What makes you say that?”

“Lucille yells a lot.”

Another snort.

“Oh my fucking god,” Negan says, wiping baby tears from the corner of his eyes, “You’ve only known her for a day and you’ve got her all figured out.”

Rick smiles and looks over at Negan.

His face is squished with laughter but his eyes tell another story, something Rick hasn’t gotten all figured out yet. 

-

Negan takes Rick to a shop that has high ceilings and bright lights and wooden interiors. 

Many of the clothes there have the same color scheme Rick likes, those neutral earthy tones. 

Rick’s never seen anything like it, and he can’t believe it's all still in order.

He’s sees short skirts in bright colors, and big button down flannels that feel so thick and woodsy and interesting when he touches them. 

They even sell actual vinyl records in one part of the store, and Rick sees Negan grab a bag from behind the checkout counter and fill it entirely with all the records of his choice.

Rick leaves him to his own business, and ventures further into the store, gathering any items of clothing that catch his eye.

He gets lost in all the colors and patterns, all the different textures of clothing and how they feel against his skin. All the washes of denim that have the subtlest differences in shade, but somehow look and feel completely different. 

He doesn’t notice Negan has come to surface until he hears the sound of his voice so close.

“Excuse me sir, but are you  _ shoplifting _ ??” He says, voice feigning scandalized. He points his finger to his newfound name tag that reads  _ Hello _ ,  _ I’m: _

_ N E G A N _ .

“As a gold star employee of this  _ distinguished _ ,  _ sexy  _ store, I’m gonna have to ask you to please drop the clothes... All of them… Even the ones you’re wearing…Oh, and hands behind your back… on the ground.”

Immediately Rick slaps his arm, face annoyed but amused, and Negan grins because he wasn’t expecting that reaction.

“You’re a perv,” Rick murmurs, but he’s smiling.

Negan chuckles, hooks his arm around Rick’s shoulder.

He looks down at the clothes between them, propped up by Rick’s arm.

“This what you’re gonna try on?”

“Yeah,” Rick says.

“You gonna model for me, princess?”

Negan has his tongue between his teeth.

Rick blushes.

“Stop being such a creep.”

Negan smirks, “Sorry,” he says, playfully tugging at Rick’s earlobe with his fingers.

_ He keeps on touching me _ , Rick thinks,  _ Why? _

He likes it. Likes the closeness and the way it makes him feel, but he just doesn’t understand.

Unless maybe Negan’s interested him? But that can’t be, he was just fawning over Lucille all of last night and this morning.

They get to the dressing rooms, and if Rick hadn’t closed the door behind him so quickly, he’s sure Negan would’ve followed him in there.

He tries on his clothes while Negan speaks mindless conversation to him and he throws mindless responses back.

It's probably the most human experience Rick has ever had. 

Every piece of clothing Rick likes, he throws over the door for Negan to catch.

Negan goes on to expect the tossing over of clothes, except one time it takes too long.

“Rick…” he calls, “C’mon, let me at it! I haven’t seen you in any of these fucking clothes. What do you want me to do? Starve?”

“I don’t like this shirt,” Rick says then.

“Why not?”

“I don’t… know.”

“Let me see it.”

A beat is missed, and then Rick responds.

“Fine,” he says, “Come here.”

Negan doesn’t have to be told twice.

Rick opens the dressing room door, and immediately Negan is met with a great sight.

The shirt Rick doesn’t like is white and sheer, loose enough that it doesn’t cling, but not too oversized that his arms get swallowed up.

Negan can see the silhouette of Rick’s waist through the puddle of light fabric, but most importantly, through the sheer angelic white, he sees the stark contrast of Rick’s rosy nipples.

He can’t take his eyes off of them, they’re so perfect and pert.

“Oh wow,” Negan says.

He moves in closer, until the gap between them is slim, still eyeing Rick’s chest, “I can see your nipples,” he says, and almost instinctively he reaches out, rubbing a thumb against one of the nubs.

Rick gasps, and the sound has them both looking up at each other.

Negan’s eyes are mostly dark, Rick notes, and his lips are red and wet, like he’s just licked them.

Rick searches for the words locked in his throat.

The way Negan stares at him fills him with this weird feeling like he might just vomit or choke.

“Kiss me..?”  Rick says hesitantly, eyes flitting with nerves.

The words slap the lust out of Negan’s head for a moment, leaving him free to be rational.

And it hits him.

Rick is going to be the first boy he’s ever kissed, his first kiss since he broke up with Lucille.

Negan’s going to be Rick’s first kiss in general.

He doesn’t want this to be romantic, but he’s not sure if Rick does.

Negan cups Rick’s jaw, tilting the boy’s head up.

His lips meet Rick’s with a gentle smooch, quick and faint before he pauses, letting his lips lay against Rick’s for a moment as he gauges the boy’s reaction.

Rick just lets his mouth fall open further, tongue darting out to run across Negan’s lower lip.

The slickness of it, the juxtaposition of Rick’s yearning and his innocence, send Negan into overdrive, and just like that things become much heavier.

Negan delves in deeper, clutching Rick’s neck with one hand before he frantically rushes the boy towards the wall.

Rick’s fingers are pressed into Negan’s hips, urging the boy’s body to be closer to his as he arches his back just to try and fill the gap.

Negan’s mouth refrains, sinking down to Rick’s neck to tend to the skin there, making Rick gasp and shudder with each payment of attention. 

His hand slides down Rick’s shoulder, clutching Rick’s chest and finding the boy’s nipple with his thumb, curling his mouth down further to Rick’s clavicle as he begins to rub, making the boy beneath his mouth moan desperately.

Negan thinks it’s so hot how reactive Rick is, and when he tells the boy that much, he sticks a knee between Rick’s thighs, hiking it up slightly to feel the hardness he knows is there.

And he’s not wrong.

Rick is so hard.

So painfully hard and sensitive that the faint pressure of Negan brushing up against his crotch has him squirming gratefully.

Negan manages to get a few buttons undone on Rick’s shirt, enough to expose just below his sternum.

Only Rick is much shorter than him, and his mouth can’t reach so easily.

So he gets a grip on Rick’s thighs, hoisting him up so that Rick can wrap his legs around Negan’s waist.

And then he finally latches onto Rick’s chest, flicking his tongue flagrantly against his nipple before he finally closes his mouth around it, lavishing it fully.

Rick all but cries out, bucking his hips in response and accidentally grinding up against Negan’s belt buckle, which only makes him yelp further.

They go on like this until Negan has broken through all the buttons on Rick’s shirt, and he can no longer support Rick’s weight.

Then they settle for the bench, where Rick straddles Negan’s lap as he sits, and Negan continues grabbing at Rick and licking his chest.

Negan thinks nothing of the shameless thrusts Rick is pulling against his groin, just passes it off as fruitless dry humping.

That is until Rick gives a particularly hard, deep thrust of the hips, and his teeth sink into Negan’s shoulder.

His body is trembling, especially his legs, and his breathing is fast and heavy.

That’s when Negan knows.

He pulls away to look at Rick- Rick who’s laying with his forehead on Negan’s shoulder- and says, slightly awed, “Holy fuck, did you just fucking cum?”

Rick lets out a breathless, “Yeah.”

“Holy shit,” Negan marvels, and his hand moves to the hem of Rick’s jeans, “Can I…?”

Rick nods.

Negan sticks his hand down the front of Rick’s jeans and past the barrier of his underwear, and that’s when he feels the slick mess of proof.

Rick’s body bucks and twitches as Negan carefully, gently strokes Rick’s cock, and Negan feels his own cock grow in response.

“Fuck that’s so fucking hot,” Negan murmurs, pulling his hand out and commanding Rick’s attention so that the boy can see him lick his fingers clean of Rick’s cum.

Then he presses his spit slick fingers against Rick’s lips, and Rick lets them in, swirling his tongue around Negan’s finger in a way that Negan can tell Rick doesn’t know how sexy he’s being.

“This your first orgasm?” Negan asks.

“Second,” Rick says hazily, laying his head back on Negan’s shoulder.

Negan smiles crookedly.

“Well... I’m honored.”

Rick hmphs to acknowledge his words.

A moment of quiet passes before Rick asks, inquisitively and always so curious, “Are you my boyfriend now?”

Negan thinks any other moment of the day he would’ve laughed at that. The kind of laugh where something is so sweet and funny that it brings you joy. 

But now, those words feel weird and heavy and imprisoning to Negan. 

“No,” Negan answers, and then, “Do you want me to be?”

Rick shrugs and Negan feels the boy’s movements on his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Rick says, “Maybe one day.”

And if that isn’t the sweetest, most honest thing Negan has ever heard. Even from Rick. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YALL FOR READING I HOPE U ENJOYED N AS ALWAYS FEEDBACK N CONSTRUCTUVE CRITICISM ARE MORE THNA WELCOME <3333333  
> ALSO YES THESE TWO DID JUST MAKEOUT N GET OFF AFTER ONE DAY OF KNOWING EACH OTHER


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise surprise i have a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/leeyumpain/playlist/7rSU7JvpHza0iVQ8Rie2GK?si=oFukOLKJT3KVAHeSfutO1w) for this fic!!! enjoy fellas  
> o and sorry for typos

“Please take that shirt.”

“No! It shows too much… skin.”

Negan gives Rick a look as they walk hand in hand towards the entrance of the store. “Rick, that shirt got you to what? Second base? Second and a half base? You’re fuckin’ taking it.”

Rick sighs, shifting the crotch of his jeans, “Fine! Anything so we can leave. It's starting to get real sticky down there and I just wanna change my underwear, eat a pretzel, and go to sleep,” he mumbles.

Negan chuckles. 

“Hey, I offered to lick you clean and you said no.”

Rick pouts. “I told you it would hurt! My penis felt like it was a live wire.”

Negan lets out a large cackle at that, wheezing deeply.

“What?” Rick says, furrowing his brow petulantly as he crosses his arms, standing still in the expanse of the mall as he watches Negan double over laughing.

“You really called your dick a penis!” Negan says, causing more laughter to spew up.

“That’s what it’s called!” Rick says, slightly embarrassed but mostly annoyed. It doesn’t matter anyways, because Negan is still losing it. 

“You are so immature,” Rick mutters as he begins to walk off without Negan.

He doesn’t get too far before he realizes he has no idea where the restroom are, or where he himself even is.

“Can you stop laughing and show me where the restrooms are?” Rick pouts, “My balls are starting to stick to my leg.”

As soon as Rick finishes speaking he regrets it.

“You- you mean your scrotum? Your t-testicles?”

Negan lets out a high pitched wheeze when he finally finishes speaking, and just like that he’s right back where he started.

Rick is pained to admit he may have let a giggle or two slip out.

-

After Rick has cleaned up, he asks Negan, “Are we staying here or are we going back to my house?”

They’re wandering aimlessly around the mall. Faintly, they can hear the sounds of the others nearby, their laughter and chatter and steps traveling throughout the virtually empty mall.

“My guess is we’re staying here,” Negan says, “There’s no way I’m driving in this goddamn dark. My contacts feel dry as fuck, I’m tired as shit. I just wanna sleep.”

“Where are we gonna sleep?” Rick asks.

Negan thinks nothing of the  _ we _ . Neither does Rick.

“Saw a mattress store up on the top floor,” Negan says, “Whaddya think about that?”

“I’ve never been to a mattress store.”

Negan smiles and puts an arm around Rick’s shoulder as he guides him towards their destination and says, “You know, princess? You’re getting a little too predictable for me. I’m starting to think I got you all figured out. Soon enough I won’t even have you wrapped around my little finger anymore. You’ll just be apart of it.”

Rick furrows his brows as Negan shrugs his pinky finger in his face, “...is that supposed to be some sort of dirty joke?”

Negan chuckles smugly, “Don’t you wish..”

They continue the rest of their trek in comfortable silence, until they stop in the midst of a brightly lit mattress store.

At first they’re just surveying, testing out each mattress, gauging squishiness with their hands, sitting on it to detect bounce and absorption.

Rick can’t believe when Negan tells him this is how people mattress shop. It seems like such a silly thing to do, but after he catches glimpse of a price tag, he understands why people would want to fully test out a mattress before buying.

They try out the most expensive mattress in the store, priced sinfully, and suddenly they understand- but don’t agree with- a mattress can be sold for so much. 

It’s firm but soft, bouncy but not turbulent, and sturdy but still pliable. 

Negan turns his neck to give Rick a look that says  _ yup, this is the one _ , but Rick is already with his eyes rolled back into his head, lashes fluttering.

How he can sleep under the glaring lights is something Negan can’t quite grasp, but still admires.

Gently, he gets up and looks around for a light switch, then ventures back to Rick in the dimness of the room.

The glass walls of the store let in light, but not enough that it’s disturbing. Just enough so you can actually see.

Negan settles next to Rick again, and as he begins to attempt sleep, the boy returns to consciousness slowly as though they’re somehow connected. 

But after a while of sighing and shifting, Negan deems his attempts fruitless and opens his eyes. And when he does, he sees Rick staring at him with a gleaming smile, like he’s somehow amused.

“What?” Negan says, feeling uncomfortable, like he’s under a microscope.

Rick just laughs lightly, “You’re so handsome,” is what he says, smile growing around each syllable.

He reaches a hand out to touch Negan’s jaw, fingers light and gentle against the newly shaved skin before he cups Negan’s face in his hands.

Negan feels his face heat up immediately, and he swats Rick’s hand away sheepishly, making the boy laugh some more. 

“Shut up and go to sleep, Rick,” Negan mutters, and Rick just cackles louder, shuffling closer to Negan and burying his face in the boy’s collarbone.

Rick’s hair tickles Negan’s chin, and somehow even his curls have managed to retain the slightest smell of sex. 

He tangles a hand in Rick’s hair, fingers braiding in with the curls, and repeats himself again, gentler now, for nearly no reason, “Go to sleep, Rick.”

Rick mumbles out an okay and nuzzles further into Negan’s chest. 

His heart is beating fast and Negan hopes Rick can’t hear it.

The boy’s snores just a few minutes later assure Negan that he doesn’t.

Still, Negan can’t sleep. Can’t make his heart relax. Can’t make his breathing even out and deepen.

With his eyes shut he rakes his figures through Rick’s hair, out of nervousness more than anything. He does it for so long he fears Rick’s hair will go straight.

After a while, Negan here’s people stumbling into the shop. It's only scuffling of the feet that he can hear, but his heart knows who it is already, and because of that it aches.

But finally his heart rate plummets depressingly.

“You’re so funny,” Lucille giggles and Negan can see the scrunch of her nose, the drunken blush on her cheeks and her forehead and chin, “You're really funny, do you know that?” She asks.

A deep giggle comes in response, hiccuping slightly. Siddiq.

Then Negan hears the telltale sound of lips smacking together, all wet and coupling, and he thinks he’s going to be sick. 

He feels rage and betrayal and jealousy boil up like hot vomit in his gut, and all for no good reason.

He’s doing the same thing, sober too, so he knows he’s being unreasonable. 

Maybe it’s because it’s late at night and he’s feeling too emotional, or because he has an immeasurable amount of pride in his character, but as Negan begins to hear bodies dropping onto a nearby bed, and soft lip-stifled moans, he untangles himself from Rick and leaves the mattress store immediately. 

Other than the thumping in his ears, all he hears is the faint, sleepy call of “Negan?” coming from Rick’s concerned mouth, but he can’t be bothered by it.

Negan storms off across the mall, exiting the building entirely and venturing off into the parking lot, searching for the beat up Mercedes.

He has a grip on the car door handle when he’s interrupted.

“Negan!” Rick yells, just a few feet from Negan’s ear, “Negan, wait!”

“Go back to the mattress store, Rick,” Negan orders, voice stuff and tight.

“No,” Rick says as Negan gets into the driver’s seat, “Where are you going?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“It is my business. This is  _ my _ car!”

Rick hurries to open the passenger’s door, but Negan is quicker, and he locks it, making Rick scoff indignantly.

“Go back in the mall, Rick!” Negan yells as he starts the car.

“No!” Rick yells back, “Why are you acting so weird?”

“Move from the car!”

“ _ No! _ ”

“ _ Move! _ ”

Rick moves, but not in the way Negan wants him to.

Instead, he hops on the dented hood of the car, sitting crookedly on the riveted metal with his legs crossed.

They lock eyes for a moment, one pair tired and the other tired and tenacious, before Negan sighs out and unlocks the passengers door.

Negan notices Rick’s slight smile as he hops off the hood. 

But Rick doesn’t feel so content when the tension begins to rise between them.

“Where are we going?” Rick asks.

“Knowing you, probably somewhere you’ve never fucking been before.”

The malice in his tone makes Rick look over at him. 

He sees the hard lines on his face, the stiffness of his jaw, obviously upset.

He fears maybe Negan being nice to him was just a facade, just a scheme, and that now Negan will go back to being that mean person throwing mean retorts at Rick and giving off hostile energy always.

It saddens him, but he tells himself Negan is just upset. It’ll pass. He hopes it’ll pass.

“What happened?” Rick asks, voice softened.

Negan thinks he sounds crushed, and that makes him come back down real quick.

His face goes from hard anger to slack defeat.

He says nothing in response to Rick.

Rick turns away from him, regretting his decision of following Negan as he fled the mattress store.

In time, they stop in front of a liquor store.

Negan is still wordless, but Rick follows him inside the shop. Although they feel like the only two people left on earth, Rick is still scared to be alone.

Rick stands by the door as he watches Negan rummage behind the checkout counter, looking for a key to the case of tobacco products behind him.

He finds it, and impatiently he unlocks the case only to do some more searching.

Whatever he’s looking for- Rick’s guessing cigarettes- he can’t find it. He must be looking for a specific brand, but Rick doesn’t understand why. Aren’t they all the same? 

Maybe they’re not, Rick decides while he watches Negan grow angrier and angrier, until he’s pounding at the glass case with his fists and spitting curses at it and glass begins to fall.

Rick conjures up an irrational fear that a shard of glass will come across one of Negan’s scars and open up his healed wound and Negan will start bleeding out again. 

“ _ Stopstopstop _ !” Rick calls frantically, hurrying to Negan’s side and clutching at the vulnerable bareness of his forearms, doing his best to pull Negan away, “You’re gonna hurt yourself,  _ please _ stop!”

“I don’t care!” Negan cries, though he heeds Rick’s call, falling to ground in defeat. The last half of his words turn into a wail, the most pained cry Rick has ever heard.

He sits on broken glass, back against the cement wall of the liquor store, knees tucked up defensively to his chest.

“I don’t fucking care if I hurt myself!” He repeats, and after he says it his chest starts heaving uncontrollably.

Rick is shocked at first, unsure of what to do or how to react. But his instincts kick in once Negan reaches up to wipe away his tears and Rick sees a leaking gash near his thumb.

Rick gets on his knees beside Negan, gently grabbing the boy’s injured hand while he weeps, and saying, “Let me help you.”

Negan lets him do whatever he wants, and Rick wraps up Negan’s hand in the hem of his clean white t-shirt, watches red begin to bloom richly across the fabric as he applies pressure.

After a while, Negan’s sobs dissipate into small hitches of his chest. Rick looks up at him and sees tears still streaming steadily.

Negan looks down at his hand with numb eyes, assessing the wound before he looks far away and  off to the side.

The bleeding stops, and Rick lets go. The cut looks worse than it actually is, and the sight of it fills Rick with dread.

“I wish there was something I could wrap your hand up with,” Rick says, trying to sound light but it just comes out awkward.

Negan doesn’t care.

He takes Rick’s hand in his, just holding it, albeit weakly. It's a small thank you for showing how much he cares. 

Rick moves to sit next to Negan, their sides pressed together. 

“What happened?” Rick asks, voice quiet in the stillness they share, an echo of the question he’d asked Negan earlier in the car, “What made you so upset?”

Negan swallows thickly. His head is still turned away, and Rick can’t see his face.

All he can rely on is the huffs of Negan’s breathing.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Negan says.

“I’m smarter than you think I am,” Rick says.

“I wasn’t questioning you. It’s just fucking hard. I don’t even fucking get it myself sometimes.” 

Rick blinks, tries guessing.

“Is… is it about Lucille?”

Negan clenches his teeth.

“Yeah,” Negan says, voice somber, “I guess a large part of it is.”

Rick reaches out, runs a careful finger along the line of Negan’s turned jaw.

The softness of it makes the boy finally turn his face.

He looks at Rick and for a second his eyes are big and wide, until they settle once again.

“Does a year feel long to you?” Negan asks.

“What?”

“How long does a year feel for you? Does it feel like a while or is it just.. just fucking piss in the wind?”

“For me?” Rick says, “For me it feels like forever.”

It takes Negan a moment to realize why. Then he gets a little sad.

“Lucille and I were together for a year. I’d known her for like two months before that,” Negan explains, “I broke up with her a week before I tried to kill myself, because I thought it would make things easier. But it just made shit fucking worse because I didn’t die like I was supposed to. That’s why she’s so tense around me all the time, and she can never forgive me and I understand that and I don’t fucking blame her but… but I loved her. I loved her a lot.”

Negan wonders if the word love holds any substance to Rick. 

Rick wonders what love feels like. If maybe it feels like the way Negan kissed him and touched him in the dressing room, or held his hand like he’s doing right now.

“Do you still love her?” Rick asks softly, curious.

Negan seems to think about it, and his breaths are heavy and even in the quiet air.

“Yeah…” 

Rick stiffens a bit at that. He was expecting, maybe even hoping, for Negan to say no. 

He changes the subject.

“What made you come here?” He asks, “To a liquor shop?”

“Thought maybe I could get a drink,” Negan says, “But then I thought how Lucille and Siddiq were drunk and how her and I used to get drunk sometimes on weekends and how my Dad was an alcoholic and I sort of was like.. maybe I fucking shouldn’t. Then I saw the cigarettes and thought maybe that oughta be my pick of poison,” Negan swallows, “But then I thought ‘ _ which ones should I get?’ _ and I could only think of the ones my Dad used to smoke. I couldn’t find them.”

Negan squeezes his hand hard around Rick’s.

“You know the first time I ever drove, it was to get my Dad a pack of cigarettes?” Negan shares, “I was only thirteen. Couldn’t even legally buy cigarettes but my Dad was so drunk he forgot about that small fucking fact. ”

Immediately, Rick is entranced by the small bit of the story.

“Was it scary?” He asks, “Were you afraid?”

“Yeah,” Negan laughs, somewhat fond of the memory but all the while not, “I was. But I didn’t want him to know. I wanted that old bitch to be proud of me for once in my fucking life.”

Rick runs his thumb over Negan’s knuckles.

“Was he?”

Negan shakes his head no.

“Crashed the old man’s car into the gas stations giant ass dumpster when I was trying to back up. He kicked my ass when he saw how wrecked his car was.”

Rick stiffens.

“Your Mom didn’t stop him?”

“My mom left when I was eight,” Negan shares.

Rick frowns.

Negan expects the usual I’m sorry, or the That’s so awful. The typical awkward, unimposing response. 

What he gets is, “Do you know  _ why _ she left?”

Negan's never heard that one before. He should’ve expected it from Rick though.

“My Dad was beating her too, and she couldn't stand to see my face anymore because I looked too much like my Dad. She thought I’d turn out exactly like him. Something along those fucked lines.”

Rick goes quiet, looking over at Negan.

“You won’t end up like him.”

Negan scoffs. The words touch him though he won’t show it. They mean a lot to him.

“Yeah cause I’m never gonna have any fucking kids.”

“I don’t think you have to have kids to be a jerk.”

Negan raises a brow.

“Well what does that mean?”

Rick doesn’t miss a beat.

“You're defensive and you’re hot blooded and maybe a little too proud, but you’re not a jerk,” Rick says, “At least I don’t think you are.”

Negan lets out an amused huff.

“Jesus, Rick. You’re a fucking psychoanalyst. What am I, an open fucking book?”

He has a cheeky smirk on his face that makes Rick blush. 

Rick shakes his head, smiling down at his lap.

Negan squeezes Rick’s hand playfully.

When he feels the heat in his face reside, Rick says, “So… are we going back?”

The question makes Negan’s mood dim, but only slightly.

“I don’t know if I want to,” Negan answers honestly.

“Where could we sleep? Here?”

Negan shrugs.

“I saw some blankets behind the counter. I don’t know why, maybe fate? The post apocalyptic gods knew I was bound to dramatically fuck off here and tire myself out from breaking shit, apparently.”

Rick shrugs too, then moves to get up, brushing off broken glass from the back of his thighs.

“I’m okay with sleeping here,” he says, “As long as we aren’t sleeping on the glass,” he jokes lightly.

Rick heads towards the counter, gingerly maneuvering around the contents Negan trashed during his episode.

Among many goods- canned food, ammunition, lighters, bags of chips, candles, matches- He finds a stack of thick blankets, pristine and folded and as he calls out, “Ooh, they’re soft!” he wonders why so many blankets would be behind a liquor store checkout counter.

His thoughts however are rudely interrupted by the sound of a gun cocking and Negan shoving Rick behind him.

“Move away from the counter,” the gunman orders after holding gaze with Negan for an uncomfortable amount of time.

He has an altogether horrifying shaved head and an off look in his eyes. Behind him stands a girl with brown wavy hair and a big pregnant belly.

When both Rick and Negan see her they become less intimidated and more understanding of the brash altercation. Although it is a bit much.

“Shane, you don’t need a gun. They’re our age.”

Negan agreed, “Yeah, dude. Chill out.”

“What are you doing in here?” Shane probes, and when Negan takes a second too long to reply, he shakes his gun at the boy, making Rick flinch and squeeze hard at Negan’s arm, trying to pull him away.

“Shane, stop!”

“What do ya think I’m doing in here, numb nuts?! What do people come to a liquor store for?? I was tryna get fucked up, alright! Jesus Christ, now stop pointing that shit at me for fucks sake!”

“ _ Shut up! _ ” Shane spits, “You come into  _ my _ property-”

Negan rolls his eyes, then interrupts with a raised finger, “You don’t  _ own _ this fucking liquor store.”

“With the way this world is now, doesn’t matter who owns what. I was here first, those blankets are mine, everything behind the counter is mine, everything in this store is  _ mine!  _ You didn’t do shit for it, I did!”

By the time he finishes he’s heaving, and everyone has their eyes on him like he’s a freak.

The vulnerability makes him calm down.

“My girlfriend’s pregnant, alright. We need all the resources we can get. I’ve been out scavenging, I’ve found a lot of stuff, but I know it's not enough, I know. It’s summer right now, but what happens when winter comes and it's dark and cold and food becomes scarce? What do I do then?”

Negan rolls his eyes again.

“You turn on the fucking light and plug in the goddamn heater, how bout that? You know electricity still fucking works, right? Everything’s the same as before this isn’t the armageddon, it's just a fucking acid trip, slip in the Matrix fuckup. There’s a McDonalds down the street that’s stock fucking full of McNuggets and shit for happy meals for your little critter. Once that’s runs out… well I don’t fucking know we can ration the fucking McFries and McBurgers or whatever. Stop flipping your shit, man. You're just stressing out the oven that holds the bun.”

Shane puts the gun down, cocking his shaved head to the side.

“Hold on… there’s power? ...Shane, did you know this whole time?”

“No, Lori, I didn’t.” 

The way he says it, ego bruised and embarrassed, is evidence enough to the rest of them.

“So where have you two been staying?” Shane asks. 

“My house,” Rick says.

“I just met him like two days ago. He’s new to my group,” Negan adds.

“Your group?” Lori says, “There’s more of you?”

Negan nods, and there’s a pause.

“I’d ask if you want to join but your bald headed baby daddy just pointed a fuckin’ pistol to our faces, and shit like that makes people a little wary, you know?” 

Shane sneers.

“We don’t need your damn group anyways-”

Lori places a hand on Shane’s arm to calm him, and he turns to look at her.

“Yes, we do,” she says sternly, casting a pointed look down at her prominent belly. 

Shane nods, then swallows- hopefully his pride- and turns back towards Rick and Negan.

“Yes, we do,” he repeats, calmer this time though he sucks his teeth while he nods his head.

Negan smirks, smug.

“Put your gun on the floor, and slide that shit far a-fucking-way,” he orders, reaching into his pocket for his phone, “Now let me call my buddies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for reading!! i hope u enjoyed and as always, feedback n consructive criticism are more than welcome :) <333


	6. Chapter 6

“You okay?” Negan asks Rick after the Shane and Lori incident.

“Yeah,” Rick says, but his eyes are still a little wide.

They’re sitting in Rick’s mom’s Mercedes, hands touching lightly where they lay on the console. 

Negan opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. Unsure of what to say, or how to walk around his words, Negan takes inspiration from Rick and just says what he wants. 

“I wouldn’t have let him hurt you,” Negan assures, throat thickening, “You know that right?”

“Yeah,” Rick repeats softly, nodding, though he still looks troubled. “But…” he continues, throat clicking as he tries to bring words to mouth, “Did you want him to shoot you? …Would you care if you got shot?”

Negan searches Rick’s eyes. The sincerity of the concern in the oceanic blue makes everything feel uncomfortably intimate, and so Negan laughs. 

“Duh. That shit would hurt like shit! Course I would fuckin’ care.”

Rick pouts and sighs, because he feels Negan has misunderstood. But Negan understands just fine. He just doesn’t want to deal with that question. 

Shane and Lori are inside the liquor store, gathering their stuff and loading it into the trunk. 

Lori carries all the light stuff. She looks like she’s about to pop any second.

Shane looks like he’s about to pop any second, too, but not in the same way.

Negan makes eye contact with Shane as he passes by the car, holds his gaze in the rear view mirror.

“Boys got some roid rage,” Negan murmurs under his breath.

“What’s that?” Rick asks.

“He has a small dick.”

Rick furrows his brows, but doesn’t ask any further questions.

“Do you think we’re safe with them?” Rick asks.

Negan nods.

“Shane’s harmless, I bet. Just a little bitch with a short temper and a superiority complex, but those come a dime a dozen in the real world,” he says, “Lori… she seems innocent, what with the giant baby belly and how she just waddles around, but it's always the innocent ones that jump out and getcha when you least expect it.”

Rick blinks.

“So… we’re not safe?”

Negan huffs a small laugh.

“We’re never safe, Rick. That’s why your parents never let you out of their sight and mine never cared if I was in it.” 

There’s no bite or malice in his tone, or even in his heavy statement, just truth and sorrow.

-

They go home with two new additions the morning after their mall getaway.

Rick notices on the drive home that his body feels weird. His nose is runny and his eyes are itchy and his bones feel heavy and he starts sneezing a lot, interrupting the grilling conversation Negan is having with Shane and Lori.

Rick finds he can’t focus, can’t hardly keep his eyes open with how tired both his mind and body feel.

His attention span fades in and out, gathering morsels of facts that are being shared in conversation.

_ Lori…… sixteen…. Boy, girl… both… twins. She’s having twins. _

_ Shane…….. seventeen… daddy’s boy… army.. something about the army.  _

Rick blames his state on the nights lack of sleep combined with the heinous events of these past two days.

In the end, he succumbs to his body and falls asleep while Negan’s interrogating two strangers in the back seat.

When he wakes up again, car parked in his garage with Negan shaking his shoulder, his skin is dewy with sweat.

Negan notices his dampness and recoils, looking up at Rick with a sudden concern.

Rick notices Shane and Lori are gone, and that Negan is at the passenger’s side, holding the door open for him.

“You okay there, Rick?” Negan asks, trying to hide the worry in his voice.

“I’m just tired,” Rick says, voice half aware and fully absent as he turns to burrow further into his seat, sighing deeply.

Immediately Negan is turning Rick around, brows creased as he flops Ricks curls out of his face, using the back of his hand to gauge the boy’s body temperature.

When he feels the abnormal warmth, the first thing he checks is the wound on his head, peeling back the bandage and assessing it’s state.

No redness, no puss, none of that.

So what the fuck is wrong with him? 

“Rick, get up,” Negan says, wrapping an arm around the boy’s shoulder as he all but lifts him out of his seat, hoping that Rick’ll just shake it off and stop scaring him.

Rick whines, leaning heavily on Negan’s shoulder and all but dragging his feet as Negan hurries to get them inside the house.

Of course the first person to see them is Lucille, and she does a double take when she sees Rick’s measly looks.

“What’s wrong with him?” She asks, moving in closer as her face fills with fright.

Negan puts out one finger, tugging Rick closer in so he doesn't fall. 

“Don’t talk to me!” He says firstly, and then, “Where’s the fuck is Siddiq??”

Lucille ignores Negan’s first comment, and instead hurries to find the man of question.

-

Rick is sleeping on the basement couch, sprawled out on his back. 

Siddiq removes Rick’s old bandage and puts on a new one after cleaning his uninfected wound. Just to be safe.

“He’s got a cold,” Siddiq states simply after Negan’s incessant pressing of  _ what’s wrong with him? _ “And some allergies.”

The news would be hilarious to Negan if he weren’t so fucking worried. The boy was practically passing out in Negan’s arms after being out in the world for just a little over a day.

“But the fever? I mean, what the fuck was that?”

“Just a good old fashion case of hay fever,” Siddiq says without a doubt, “He has a weak immune system because of his upbringing. Being exposed to all these germs he’s never faced for more than the span of a bike ride, I’m surprised he didn’t catch something worse.”

Negan stands there, gobsmacked for a second, because that wasn’t even something he had taken into consideration.

There’s no doubt in his mind now the reason for Rick’s sickness and it was not due to infection, but rather affection.

Negan’s affection.

Or actually lust. That seems much more like it.

Negan’s spit got Rick sick.

“So this is just gonna pass?”

“It should,” Siddiq nods, “It should even make his immune system stronger, fortunately.”

Negan sighs.

“They vaccinated him right?” He asks, “He can’t get like… fucking polio or something terrifying like that?” 

Siddiq nods, “The only good thing his parents decided to do… thankfully.”

Negan nods, too.

After the panic of Rick’s ill state subsides, the awkwardness begins to fill in the spaces between them.

_ Does Siddiq know I kissed him? _

_ Siddiq kissed Lucille. _

_ Does Siddiq know that I know that he kissed Lucille?  _

_ Should I punch him? _

_ He’s too nice to punch… he literally just nursed Rick to health… so what do I do? _

Before Negan can think of anything to say or do, Siddiq clears his throat and speaks up.

“I know, um, that you and Lucille have something going on,” he says, trying to meet Negan’s eyes. Negan is looking away. “I just want you to know I won’t do anything, I won’t go along with anything if you don’t want me to. I was drunk last night, me and her both, and I’m sorry you had to see us like that.”

Negan looks down at Rick and his absent face as he responds, saying, “Siddiq. I don’t need you to feel bad for me. I don’t need you to wait for me. Don’t fucking worry about if I’m okay with… whatever you two are. Worry about Lucille. You’re trying to fuck her, not me, remember?”

His brashness makes Siddiq nervous.

“It’s.. It's just that she told me you were still struggling with your breakup, and of course the whole of us are always together as a group. I didn’t want you seeing us to make it any harder on you.”

Negan goes quiet, Rick twitches in his sleep.

“You try to commit suicide once and people treat you like a fucking fuzzy ass dandelion,” he murmurs before tearing his eyes from Rick, finally paying attention to Siddiq, “I don’t have a say in your relationship. I don’t like seeing my ex with some smart hot dude who’s actually nice, but it's better than seeing her with some fuckin’ douche. Or seeing her sad. So it's none of my fucking business, and I’d really fucking appreciate it if you didn’t make it my fucking business.”

Siddiq's big eyed gaze never wavers.

“I don’t think you’re weak for what you did,” he says, “I understand why you did it, even if I won’t ever know how you felt. I understand how powerful love can be. I just didn’t want to put you under any more stress.”

Well spoken  _ and _ calm. 

Negan hmphs.

Lucille always complained about Negan saying the wrong things at the wrong time.

“I’ll be alright,” Negan says, then sighs, “Always am.”

He thinks that’s his curse. Of course he has to live through everything.

A moment passes, silent and thick, though waning thin, before Siddiq coughs.

“So you think I’m smart and hot?”

It takes Negan a second to process what Siddiq has just said.

Then he smirks, half assed.

“I’d be a fucking fool not to.”

-

Negan sits on the floor by the couch for as long as he can get away with while Rick sleeps like the dead.

He doesn’t get up to put on some music, doesn’t go upstairs to get a drink (although his mouth is dry), and he doesn’t try to wake up Rick to seek entertainment.

He wants to be alone, but at the same time he doesn’t, and having an unconscious Rick just an inch away is the closest he’ll get to satisfying that odd and contradicting desire. 

Vaguely he has an urge to find some paper and something to write with, has an urge to rummage through the DVDs he sees in the corner, or go get the records he took from the mall last night so he can’t listen to them. 

He thinks maybe he should make something, document everything, create. 

He thinks he should do something that’ll last through whatever chapter of the world this is and stand as proof for the next chapters to come. 

But Negan doesn’t have the energy, so he sits and stares and wallows in his thoughts as Rick’s breath comes out of his body so even and deep.

He thinks there’s no point in trying to find his talents and attempt to better them when the world has ended. The only point now is to live; to just breathe and unload and find other people to give the same opportunity to.

He thinks he deserves that much.

Negan is sitting with his legs folded in, picking at the torn threads of his jeans with his fidgety fingers when Lucille descends into the basement.

Negan is so far in his thoughts he doesn’t notice her until she’s standing beside him, looming over his balled form.

He looks up at her to acknowledge her.

She waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Then she looks over at Rick and sighs, swallowing her pride.

“Everybody’s eating dinner upstairs,” she says.

Negan doesn’t meet her gaze.

“Okay,” he says tersely.

She sighs quietly at how impetulant he is, but goes to sit beside him. 

“Have you eaten all day?” She asks, though she gives him no time to answer because she already knows, “C’mon. You should eat something.”

“I’m not hungry right now,” Negan says, and it's not a lie. His appetite always dwindles when he gets lost in this thoughts. Alongside his weak argument, he adds, “Rick should be awake any minute now. I don’t want him to freak out when he sees he’s alone.”

Lucille huffs softly, but doesn’t fight him on it.

“I’ll sit with you then. Until he wakes up.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Negan can’t counter that. Maybe he wants to, but nothing comes to mind.

Lucille’s heat radiates off her skin and onto Negan’s as she sits beside him. She’s close enough that if Negan lolled to the side they’d be touching, but for the first time that thought seems more mindless than comforting.

“So,” Negan begins, trying to exile his frazzledness out his mouth alongside his words and his breath, “How are the  _ new _ new kids?”

“Michonne has them under control. Her and Andrea decided to let them stay, and now they’re upstairs with the rest of them,” she says, “Lori’s nice. A little quiet, but I’m sure she’ll break out of it soon. Shane is… a boy. Super annoying, but manageable. A little narcissistic, but hey, I’m no expert on that kinda shit.”

Negan lets out a mild laugh, and after that their conversation falls short.

Rick shuffles, and while Lucille thinks his consciousness has returned, it hasn't. But his motions serve as a reminder, and when her gaze goes from Rick to Negan, she knows what she has to say.

She clears her throat.

“Siddiq and I are getting pretty close,” she begins.

Negan scoffs lightly, and the sound is weak and bitter.

“So I’ve seen…”

“I just want you to know,” she sighs, “I’m not asking for your say, and I’m not apologizing. I just want you to know that I care about you enough to tell you.”

Negan swallows. 

A sigh.

“Well thanks, I guess.”

Negan sounds indifferent but he means it. Never mind that he feels so awkward saying it.

“Yeah sure,” Lucille says in the exact same manner.

There’s a pause, and then Negan breathes deeply.

“You were the first person I ever loved,” he says, and his words feel gigantic in the silent air, like he’s hacked then up from his lungs and they’re lying ugly and bloody on the floor between his and Lucille’s feet.

Lucille turns her head towards him, slightly awed, as if Negan hadn’t told her he loved her every moment they were together. 

But she nods to say she understands. She nods to say  _ me too. _

“You had to know I wouldn’t be the last.”

Negan laughs, dull.

“I didn’t. I was only seventeen, for fucks fucking sake,” he gulps down the will to cry, and the lump crawling up his throat, “You were the only thing I knew back then,” he nearly whimpers.

Lucille reaches out to grab Negan’s hand. It feels foreign all the while, but Negan doesn’t protest.

“I’ll always love you, Negan,” she says earnestly, tiny tearful wells of emotion making her eyes look like crystal, “Always,” she repeats, “We were meant to be together then, but not now. And you know that, I know you do.”

Negan nods, gnawing at his lip.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he feels he owes her that much.

Lucille offers a feeble smile, weak and watery. She squeezes his knee as a bid farewell, her touch lingering, and then she leaves back upstairs with a promise to save him some food for when he feels up to eating.

Like clockwork, the basement door closes behind her, and Rick is shuffling awake moments later.

He lets out a few sleepy groans, stretching out his arms and his legs before he brings himself up in a sitting position.

When he sees Negan on the ground, he smiles, and it feels tight with his puffy his face is.

“Hey,” Rick says, and Negan turns around.

“Hey.”

“How long was I asleep?” Rick asks.

“A few hours,” Negan replies.

He grabs a water bottle Siddiq had set off to the side especially for Rick and hands it to him, saying, “Here, drink this.”

Rick obliges, but not without a crinkle of the brow and scratchy throated, “Why?”

“Because you’re sick.”

Rick downs half the bottle.

“I am?” Rick says, “I’ve never been sick before.”

“Yeah? How do you feel?”

Rick shrugs, “Alright I guess.”

To that Negan says nothing, and he remains still just like he has been these past few hours.

Rick studies him for a second, then says, “What about you? Why do you sound so sad?”

Negan purses his lips.

“I just talked to Lucille.”

“Oh..?”

“And her and Siddiq are together.”

Rick’s eyes widen with surprise.

“Oh wow… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Negan says, “It’s ok or something like that.”

Rick gives a chuckle with no smile.  _ Something like that. _

He downs the rest of the bottle, then crinkles the plastic loudly in his hands.

The sound gets on Negan’s nerves, and he has to tell Rick to stop.

Rick pouts and boops him on the head with the empty bottle.

Then Rick remembers.

“You know how Lori’s pregnant?” Rick says.

“Yeah…” Negan says with hesitant suspicion, and then, “Please don’t ask me where babies come from..”

Rick rolls his eyes.

“I wasn’t, jerk,” he says, “I was gonna ask, how is she gonna have her babies when the time comes? Who’s gonna deliver them?”

Negan doesn’t bother asking how Rick knew Lori was having twins, but instead spends the time realizing how insane that is, how scary it must be and how Lori must be wondering the same thing.

“Well… Siddiq is the most qualified. I’m sure he’ll know a thing or two when the time comes,” Negan speaks with no confidence, “And I mean we can always research this shit. She’ll be fine, don’t worry. So will the kiddos.”

Rick nods.

“I had a dream right now,” Rick says, “It was weird.”

Negan quirks an eyebrow at the change of subject.

“Yeah? What happened?”

Rick’s eyes go off to the side as he recalls.

“I dreamt that I delivered Lori’s babies,” Rick says, slightly fond, “In one of those blue inflatable swimming pools.”

Negan looks frightened just by entertaining the possibility of such things happening; of Rick walking Lori through a water birth.

“It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw and it wasn’t even real,” Rick says, smiling softly, “My brain just made it up.”

“Sounds like one hell of a fever dream,” Negan says, disregarding what Rick has told him.

Then he pats Rick’s leg, finally rising to his feet, “You hungry? Let’s go get some food.”

“Okay,” Rick says, getting up on his slightly achy feet.

Negan waits for him, hovering an arm around his waist in case he wobbles over.

Just as they’re about to walk out the basement door, Rick says, “Wait..” making Negan stop in his tracks.

He looks up at Rick expectantly, a question in his quirked brow.

“Can you kiss me?”

Negan gives a crooked smile. Rick never fails to amuse him.

“Not on the mouth, princess,” he says, leaning down to plant a chaste kiss on Rick’s temple, “But sure.”

Rick doesn’t complain, instead blushing smugly somehow.

Negan wraps his arms fully around Rick’s waist now, bringing him in close.

-

Everytime Negan sees Lori now all he can think about is that set of twins inside her belly.

Everyone is so smitten by her, and for good reason, but Negan is terrified. 

Not of her, but of her fate, and perhaps even the fate of her unborn children.

Rick touches her belly all the time, becomes alight with glee everytime he feels a kick or a stir.

Rosita ties Lori’s shoes for her every morning, presses ice packs to her swollen ankles.

Glenn gives her his leftover food even though there’s plenty for all, because according to him she’s eating for three now.

Siddiq monitors over her health, researches at home delivery methods.

Lucille makes sure there’s an abundance of pickles in the house at all times.

Michonne watches Lori with soft, nostalgic eyes, sad in their core because she remembers those days.

Andrea asks if she has any names in mind, Lori says it’s undecided because she just can’t seem to choose the right ones.

Tara says she should name bother her children Tara, regardless of any circumstances.

Noah says she should name both her children Noah, regardless of any circumstances.

Carol makes Lori homemade cookies whenever she asks.

Maggie and Beth scavenge through nearby stores for baby stuff; clothes, toys, books, and all.

Everyone is softer because of Lori. Even Shane. Even Daryl. 

Negan can hardly look at her in the eye without feeling panicked or guilty.

Of course he wishes the best for her, but he can only assume the worst- and because of that, the worst is what he prepares for.

He starts having nightmares where everything is black. 

Where all he hears is the sounds of babies crying wretchedly and no sound of Lori, or where Lori is screaming and yelling and pushing and grunting and no wailing cries come to her relief, but the tiny bodies do. 

And then the hopeless guttural sobs of a fruitless mother fill Negan’s ears and he shoots up from his slumber in cold sweat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for reading!! i hope u enoyed and as always feedback n constructive criticism is more than welcome <333


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mood: like real people do by Hozier

“How’d you get pregnant?” Rick asks Lori.

They’re sitting in Rick’s old room- the room Lori now occupies-  and they’re talking, simple and easy as the sun peeks through the sheer curtains, and makes the cool blue of the bedroom walls seem warm and welcoming instead of silent and still.

Simple and easy as the air conditioning hums, as Lori lays on her back and stares up at the mountainous hump of her belly, and as she runs her finger along the slope her skin makes.

Simple and easy as Rick sits at his old desk and the corner and watches.

Lori is a lot like him.

Or so he’s been told, by Negan and by others.

Her parents were controlling, but not as bad as Rick’s. They gave her some leeway but not enough; just enough to leave her curiosity eager and daring.

Rick thinks if his parents ever gave him even the slightest bit of freedom, freedom the size of a grain of sand, he would’ve taken full advantage of it. He would’ve rode it out until the tires burned and the world smelt of burning rubber for the rest of its days.

“How’d I get pregnant?” Lori asks, her dainty hand stopping along her skin, “You mean as in… how does it work?”

Rick sighs, slumping in his seat, “You too? I know how babies are made okay? Just because I didn’t go to public school doesn’t mean I didn’t take a basic science course. What I mean is…  _ how  _ could you do it? Like with your parents and all, how did you find the time? How did you not get caught?”

Lori crooks her head thoughtfully, because Rick is right, its not as easy as it seems.

“Well,” she begins, a sobering look on her face, “I  _ did _ go to public school. So… I met boys my age… girls my age. But.. they were all doing things. Going to parties, hanging out with their friends, going to football games and basketball games and band trips and class trips, and doing drugs and having sex- the whole typical teenage experience- and I’d never done any of that. My parents never let me leave the house let alone their sight if it wasn’t for school, and I just- I didn’t know how to do those things. I never knew how to talk to people and make friends and joke around. I never fit in, and when you’re fifteen years old and you’re in high school all you want to is to feel like you belong somewhere… or like somebody likes you.”

Rick listens attentively, eyes focused yet soft as he watches the girl.

“And Shane liked me, “ she continues, “So I fucked him in the backseat of his car during lunch break one day. I didn’t have to- he didn’t make me feel like I had to- but I wanted to. I wanted to because I felt like I needed to so I could feel normal.” 

Rick notices the emotion that lies all on her face and in her eyes, still tender and provoked although she speaks from a past life.

She looks down at her belly, smiling slight and crooked.

“Plus I heard somewhere that the first time you have sex you can’t get pregnant, which is.. so not true. And Shane was obviously terrible at pulling out.”

Rick chuckles at that, then asks.

“...wait, what’s pulling out?”

Lori’s blank for a second, but then her eyes go wide, and immediately a flush meets her cheeks.

“Oh God,” she says, voice muffled by the mask of her hands as she smiles into them, “Um…”

“Tell me!” Rick says as she hesitates, “C’mon, tell me!”

“Okay okay!” She says, throwing her head back into the pillow, closing her eyes with embarrassment, “It’s.. when you don’t have a condom and uh, they have to...  _ get out  _ right before they-”

Negan walks in before Lori can finish her awkward statement, and her words are left hung up in her throat.

The second Negan sees her and her bare pregnant belly, he freezes.

Rick turns his head, sees Negan, and a soft chirp of joy breaks in his belly and a smile stretches onto his face, fattening his cheeks.

He watches Negan’s adam's apple bob his throat as he swallows, notices the straightness of his face as he speaks to Lori.

“Mind if I borrow Rick?” He says tersely, too stiff to go unnoticed.

The sun glares in Lori’s eyes, and Rick chalks that up to why her face crinkles unpleasantly.

“Sure,” she says.

Negan nods and looks away quickly, walking out the door without even sparing another glance at the girl or the boy.

If Rick didn’t know any better he wouldn’t have assumed Negan wanted him to follow. 

But he does, so he follows.

“What did you need me for?” Rick asks, voice light as he trails after Negan.

He’s moving so fast Rick has to trot and lay a hand on his shoulder to get him to slow down.

“Negan-”

“You’re talking to Lori about sex,” Negan says once he has Rick alone, and though it sounds like it should be a question, it isn’t. 

Rick’s face falls with surprise.

“Yeah..” Rick says, sheepish. 

Hearing Negan say that word, seeing Negan look at him with such a firm look- it makes him self conscious. Maybe even a little fluttery.

It's a feeling that Rick can’t place. 

“Why?”

“Because… well,  _ because! _ ” He says, looking at the neckline of Negan’s shirt and not Negan as he sighs, “I don’t know..”

“You know,” Negan says, “you know there’s a reason.”

Rick purses his lips in frustration, flushing red with embarrassment as he huffs.

Negan watches the feelings Rick portrays dissipate, until they’re gone and he looks soft and blank and questionable.

“I don’t know the reason. Maybe I just wanna know what it's like.”

Rick’s doe eyes search for approval, for assurance that he’s said the right thing.

Negan doesn’t know how to tell Rick he can say whatever he wants, that he can think however he wants to think, and it frustrates him.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Negan says, and maybe those words would be suggestive any other time, but right now they’re tight and sour and they make Rick frown.

“How?” Rick asks, “With who?”

His body is impatient and taut, even as he follows Negan down into the basement.

“Like I fucking know…” is Negan’s response.

Rick stays on the steps of the basement, annoyed by Negan’s answer, while Negan ventures further in and sits on the sunken couch, running a hand through his more than greasy hair.

Rick notices how his fingers get caught in knotted tangles, how he winces at the tug, and how his hair lies in stringy clumps after it’s  been raked through.

“You can take a shower, you know,” Rick says.

He retires to the steps beneath his feet, feeling them creak under the weight of his sitting.

“Shut up,” is all Negan murmurs after another moment of finger brushing his stringy hair.

There is no bite to his words, and there’s no more tension.

His tone teases and tickles with undertones of sheepishness, and Rick smiles down at the wooden steps he sits upon.

Negan turns his head and looks over at Rick with a small smile on his lips that Rick can’t see, a smile that Negan doesn’t even know is there.

He sees Rick looking down, running his thumb over stained wood.

Rick feels eyes on him and he looks up to meet Negan’s gaze. He matches Negan’s wary smile just as the boy says, “Come here.”

Then he goes to sit beside Negan without another word.

Thigh to thigh, he curls an arm around Negan’s shoulders, managing to snake his fingers into the thick darkness of Negan’s hair, never deterred by its stringy state.

Negan lets his head fall onto Rick’s shoulder, sinking into him. 

They stay like that for a while and Rick thinks maybe Negan has gone to sleep with how his breath evens out, and he’s glad considering how those deep purple circles beneath his eyes are puffy and prominent and begging to be drained.

But then Negan nuzzles further into Rick and Rick knows he was wrong.

“What did you call me for?” Rick asks, quiet and gentle.

Negan pauses, shifting lightly.

“I need to show you something,” he says, soft and childlike, “But I’m scared,” he admits.

Rick furrows his brows, a quick twitch of concern, before he continues the soothing drag of his nails against Negan’s scalp.

“You can tell me,” he assures, earnest in every way.

Negan’s fingers scratch warily at Rick’s jeans.

“I’ve been having dreams,” He sighs, “I’ve been sleepwalking.”

“Is that why you don’t sleep with me anymore?”

Negan nods, “Yeah..”

“You can tell me,” Rick repeats.

Negan wants nothing more than to dismiss what he’s said, to let it go and stay put where he is, swaying away into relaxation against the firm reassurance of Rick’s sturdy shoulder.

But it’s been eating away at him since they picked up Lori and Shane and he can’t take it anymore. He has to let someone know. 

And who better than Rick, who doesn’t question before he listens? 

Negan closes his eyes, swallowing harshly as he tries his best to retain the peace he’s feeling right now.

A deep sigh, and he confesses, “I have to show you.”

Rick pulls away, and Negan yearns.

“Show me?”

Negan nods.

-

Rick stands perplexed at the sight.

His backyard is clean and tidy, just as it had always been, save for the way his bike is thrown against the spring green carpet grass- and the one near six feet deep obstruction.

Rick looks over at Negan, mouth agape and the Negan is pained.

Suddenly the grimy knees of his jeans and the dirt beneath his fingernails and the new tender and peeling calluses on his palms make sense.

“You dug this?” Rick asks.

The shovel stands there, stabbed into the earth, standing crookedly like a third wheel.

Negan looks up at it like he expects it to speak and rat him out, but it just stands there, as incriminating as the thick pile of moist wormy soil beside the grave.

Of course it says nothing.

So Negan nods, because his voice feels unreliable.

“Why?”

Rick knows why, but he can’t quite grasp it.

Negan waits until he thinks his vocal cords won’t collapse, then says “I’ve been having dreams,” just as he told Rick in the basement, adding now, “It’s either Lori or the babies, Lori or the babies, every fucking night- like someone wants me to choose and it’s been fucking me up day after day because I don’t wanna make that decision, no one should ever have to make that decision. But I feel it, Rick and I’m fucking scared, I’m so fucking scared I can’t look her in the eyes and I can’t look at her stomach. I-” Negan chokes, “I’m so fucking scared.”

Negan's eyes are wide with expression, looking sunken with the dark shadows, and his ghoulishly pale face is a whole other fright of its own.

Because its true; truer than true. Negan can’t find words big enough to show just how terrified he is. 

He wants his Mom, he wishes she was here. He hates her and she doesn’t care for him but he wishes he had some sort of maternal comfort. 

He wants guidance.

Rick sighs, placing a hand on Negan’s cheek. 

The stubble against his pasty complexion makes his skin look gray and haggard.

Negan settles into the touch for just a second before Rick pulls away.

He walks towards the shovel, pulling it out of the earth. 

“What are you doing?” Negan asks as Rick begins to shovel the dirt back where it come from, his form awkward and new.

“She’s not going to die,” Rick says evenly, “Neither are her babies.”

Negan opens his mouth to say something, probably something negative, but before he can he stops himself. 

Or rather Rick’s terrible technique does.

Instead of speaking he just sighs, taking the shovel from the boy.

“You do it like this,” Negan says, working as an example for the boy, “See my arms? My shoulders?” His hands are dirty and rough looking as he grasps the wooden rod, “My hands?”

Rick sees ‘em alright. 

And he watches as Negan fills the grave all on his own without even realizing.

Of course Rick helps, always. Or tries to.

When they’re done, there’s still a blemish in his backyard, a huge lot of lumpy soil that looks off in contrast to the even gathering of grass all around.

Sweat has their shirts clinging to their backs, sticky and wet, but they sit on the porch with their legs hanging off the edge, swinging to and fro. 

Thigh to thigh again, slouching with fatigue as they take in the view before them. 

Rick leans back on his hands, snagging Negan’s in the process, and the boy looks up as though Rick has beckoned him.

His eyes are wide and questioning, and Rick mirrors him.

“Are you okay?” Rick asks.

The words slip out, and he hadn’t known they were there inside of him in until Negan’s gaze landed on him. 

Negan swallows, a slight frown tugging at his lip, but he contains it.

“Are you?” He counters.

Rick blinks.

“I’m fine,” Rick says, taken aback.

Negan nods.

Rick looks away, and back towards the grass, back towards the lumpy lot of soil.

What would his father say if he say this mess? This ugly example of a lawn, reflecting a lack of discipline and skill and diligence.

The wind moves Rick’s curls into his eyes, and he squints away from the strands.

Rick still feels Negan’s gaze on him, light and inquiring.

He takes a leap of courage and meets the others eyes, curls still obstructing his vision,

Negan's lips bend into a faint smile as Rick looks at him, but they don’t stay that way for long.

Rick reaches out, hand moving to the nape of Negan’s neck, and suddenly Negan is somber and morosely so.

Rick searches the boy’s eyes, but they’re just the same, and Rick doesn’t feel him tense underneath his touch.

His gaze moves down towards Negan’s lips, and before he can think a second too long about it, he leans in, slowly so Negan can reject it if he wants.

But Negan stays still and numb, eyes unwavering and open- and they stay open as Rick leans in, pressing his lips softly against Negan’s, tasting the faintest bit of sweat and feeling the softest brush of touch.

Negan doesn’t respond, doesn’t shut his eyes or sigh like Rick does, he just sits there, taking it all in for nothing as if Rick was the breeze that blows against him with freewill.

Rick notices Negan’s unresponsiveness, marks it as disinterest, and suddenly he’s embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he says after he’s pulled away, “I…” Rick shakes his head, trailing off, “just, sorry.”

Things go quiet, and Rick waits.

He waits for Negan to say  _ that wasn’t cool _ or  _ no its okay _ , but Negan doesn’t say anything and the anticipation comes to be too much.

Rick sucks in a sharp breath and goes for it.

“You haven’t kissed me since the mall,” Rick says, but then he remembers the cheek kiss after that, “Well… like, really kissed me..”

He waits for Negan to say something, to prove that he’s listening.

The boy is still blank as if Rick’s kiss froze him.

“Do you regret it? Is that why we haven’t done it in a while?”

Negan’s looking at Rick now at least, but he still says nothing. 

Rick sighs and tries again.

“Is it because I got sick after what we did? Because I’m not sick anymore, y’know.”

Negan manages a laugh, though it’s weak and smaller than a breath. Still a laugh.

“I know, Rick,” he says.

Rick smiles back at him, just a quirk of the lips.

“You need to talk,” Rick says after further investigation of Negan’s face, “I can tell.”

“I’ve been thinking-” Negan says, but Rick cuts him off with a shake of his head.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Negan raises a brow, unsure.

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter,” Rick shrugs.

Negan watches as Rick gets to his feet, and he feels aRick’s presence subside from beside him though the boy only moves a few feet away.

“Why don’t we shower first?” Rick says, “We’ve been out here for a while.”

-

Rick and Negan head inside the house, and hurry past any people in their way.

If anyone notices the dirt they’re caked in or the sweat that sheens them, no one says anything. 

Just like no one said anything about the ominous backyard grave, and how no one will say anything about the obstruction in the ground when they see it.

Some things you have to omit. 

As the two walk towards the bathroom, maybe it's out of habit- be it that Rick is so used to following Negan, or that he’s simply headed to the bathroom closest to his old room- but Rick doesn’t realize he’s following Negan until the shower is running and Negan’s peeling off his t-shirt and Rick’s standing there by the doorway stunned as he watches Negan’s back flex and stretch.

He has his hands on the button of his jeans when he sees Rick’s face and says, simply, “What?”

Rick snaps out of it and tears his eyes away, saying, “Nothing, um, its okay it’s fine I can use the... the other bathroom.”

He bumps his shoulder into the wall on his way out, hissing and clutching the affected spot, before scurrying off without another word.

In the downstairs bathroom, Rick strips in record time and rendezvous beneath the warm spray of water.

He sits on the shower floor, bare against the white porcelain, and rubs himself to the memory of Negan’s mouth on his skin in that changing room just a few weeks ago. 

Rick wishes that could all just happen again, everyday, more and more.

-

“Where are you two going?”

Lucille watches as Negan trails behind Rick, who has his hand on the front door knob.

She tries not to sound so intervening, so suspicious, but she can’t help her own curiosity.

“Out,” Negan states, urging Rick to continue out the door. 

But Rick turns around, acknowledging Lucille.

The girl has her eye on Negan and Burrito cuddled up in her arms.

“We’re going for a walk,” Rick says.

With a bodily sigh, Negan begrudgingly turns around to face Lucille’s knowing look, head tilted petulantly.

He raises his eyebrows at her, daring her to say something. 

The girl just smirks, sharing the look with the both of them.

Then she decides they’re in the clear, shooing them out the door. 

“Don’t stay out too late, kiddos. I’ll be locking the doors at ten thirty!” She calls, smacking Negan’s ass on his way out.

Negan whips his head back to shoot her a glare, but she’s closing the door before he can even bother.

He shakes his head in amusement, and as they leave the confines of Rick’s picket fence, Rick finds Negan’s hand and twines their fingers together.

Easily, this is one of Rick’s favorite feelings. Negan’s never been one for hand holding, but the simple enthusiasm the other boy has for it has made Negan’s tolerance expand farther than he ever would’ve expected.

Venturing down the smoothly paved roads, dirt and gravel crunching beneath their shoes, they watch the sun begin to set in warm colors like pink and orange and yellow.

Rick can’t tell where the orange and the yellow begin, and Negan swears there’s the thinnest layer of red near the horizon.

Rick says no, that’s the pink, and Negan can’t argue with him any further. Not when he sounds so sure and so enthusiastic.

They keep walking, and Negan thinks Rick has no idea where they’re going despite the leading grip he has on Negan’s hand. 

He’s proven wrong when Rick slows down, looking down at the pavement and kicking it with his feet.

“What are you doing?” Negan asks.

Rick shrugs, giving one last kick before he frees Negan's hand of his grip and takes a seat on the curb.

Negan debates on scolding him for sitting in the dirt when he just took a shower, but he figures the last thing Rick really needs is a parent.

So he sits beside Rick, ass in the dirt, and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Rick looks down at his shoes.

“This was my favorite street to ride my bike on,” he begins, “Because it's so smooth.”

“Yeah?” Negan says.

Rick nods, “I used to keep myself up at night just worrying about how everyday it’ll get less smooth because of cars and rain and the sun and all that, but I would always comfort myself by thinking that one day I’d leave and I’d never come back. So I’d never have to see it get ugly.”

Rick presses his lips together.

“But now there’s no reason to leave,” he continues, “There’s no one to defy, no big exciting life to lead, no giant dreams to chase. There’s no point anymore, so I just stay here and I watch it rot like I always knew I would. Only no one will ever be around to fix it, because no one’s qualified. No one will ever be qualified, maybe.”

Negan looks down at the road and it looks okay to him. It still has that dark slate color from being recently paved, though some dust lingers in the ever so minuscule cracks.

“It’s better like this,” Negan says, “There was no point in having the world be how it was,” he chews on the inside of his cheek, trying to gather his mind onto his tongue, “Everyone leaves to get away, but what they’re running from is something that’s traumatized them for life.. so it’s fucking pointless. Might as well just stay because those sort of things never leave.”

“But you’ve lived through that,” Rick argues, brows furrowed, “You get to have the knowledge and the experience to say that; I don’t. I don’t know what normal life is like. I don’t know anything about school or jobs or society,” he goes quiet, spares a glance at the warm sunset, “A month ago I’d never seen the sunset unless it was from my bedroom window.”

Negan bites his tongue.

He can’t say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Not now, not to Rick.

“Maybe your parents weren’t so wrong,” Negan says, and as soon as he says it he feels Rick’s head snap towards him, “There’s horrible shit out here, Rick. Ugly shit. Nothing any adult should see, let alone a kid. They had good reason. They felt guilty.  _ I _ feel guilty just watching Lori’s fucking unborn twins sit in her belly, knowing what they’re coming into. And if they kill their mother when they come out of her? If Lori has to live with knowing she couldn’t save her babies? Lori’s just a kid, too, man, I-” Negan swallows a lump in his throat, then shakes his head, running way off course.

He hasn’t even gotten his point across. He doesn’t know if he even has one. Maybe he’s just talking out of his ass and he can’t help it, just stringing words together as they come to mind.

He laughs, bitter and without humor.

“This is what I was thinking about in your backyard. This is what I’ve been thinking about since we found Lori and Shane… since you got fucking sick after the mall..”

Negan shifts uncomfortably in his skin, rocking forward to fix how he sits on the curb.

“I knew they were trying to protect me, but they did more harm to me than what you think the world ever could’ve. All of my traumas, they’re  _ fruitless _ . I didn’t get people out of them, I didn’t get friends or memories or experiences or lessons about myself or the world or  _ anyone.  _ They were just boring and useless and they wasted my time,” Rick says, and he can’t help how his voice raises, and how it itches like he’s about to vomit.

He swallows the feeling down, lacquering his throat with saliva.

“You protect your children for as long as you can, you do your best to keep them safe, but you can’t stop everything. Harm is everywhere.”

Negan nods solemnly.

“I think my Mom knew that even though I was in that house all the time, under her watch, I could still get hurt and she had no control over it,” Rick says, pensive, “ Like when I fell down the stairs and got my scar, I bet my mom was thinking of every possible way to prevent something like that from happening again, but what could she do? Remove all the stairs in the house? ...She knew it was all inevitable,” Rick says, adding, “Or at least I hope she did.”

Negan says nothing more to counter the boy, and that part of their conversation seems to be left at that. 

Rick notices the dark closing in around them much sooner than anticipated.

He gets up from the curb and offers his hand to Negan.

It takes the boy a moment to notice it, but when he does, he doesn’t decline.

They begin their walk back to Rick’s house, hand in hand again, though Negan’s grip feels weak and limp.

Rick squeezes Negan’s hand, asking for attention.

Negan gives it to him in the form of a vague tilt of the head.

“I know you feel bad because you got me sick, and I know you’re scared that something worse could happen if you do it again, but… your spit is already in my system,” Negan lets out a small chuckle, and Rick smirks with delighted surprise as he continues, “My body already knows how to fight off your germs, so… I think we’re all good to, y’know.. Kiss…?”

The slight question in his voice and the sweet lily of hope is enough to make Negan give in, and as they walk, Negan turns his head to snag a quick peck off of Rick’s lips. 

Rick freezes in his steps, a small look of shock written on his face, and Negan laughs because although he can’t see the boy’s reaction, he already knew the likes of it the moment he felt Rick’s hand slip away from his.

Negan turns around, walking backwards as he watches Rick’s brain work at overdrive.

“Happy?” He says around giggles.

His voice brings Rick back to earth, and suddenly the boy’s rushing to close the gap of distance between them, yelling, “That’s not fair! I wasn’t ready!”

Negan laughs, but let's Rick crash into him and smother him in a desperate kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading!!!! i hope u enjoyed and as always feedback n constructive criticism are more than welcome <33333


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if i said this, but from the beginning i wanted this work to be really short compared to my other works n so far thats going to plan. i think maybe there will be one chapter left, no epilogue. unless u count this chapter as the end and the next as the epilogue. or who knows maybe ill write a damn epilogue.... idk!!! anyways enjoy! this shit took me so long n it ended up rlly introspective but i guess thats ok cuz most of my shit is prett dialogue heavy

The sex comes naturally. 

Because Lori is pregnant, and the weeks until she’s due are dwindling down to days, the group decides to put their recruiting on hold. They’d rather not bring someone in and risk the chance of them being dangerous or just plain annoying when Lori is in the finals bouts of her pregnancy. Neither would they want to scare a new member with an at home birth right before their eyes the second they step foot into Rick’s home. And maybe the group feels content with the number of their members now. Maybe they feel like they’ve found the right set up, and are too selfish to let it go. Who knows if that’s a good or bad thing.

Because their days before Lori consisted of mostly searching, everyone has so much free time on their hands and they’re not so sure of what to do with it. 

Some days they all pile up in the living room and just talk, commiserating in their boredom and their likely thoughts. Other days everyone’s off in different rooms doing their own things, or venturing off into the town to find a change of scenery or grab some household necessities. Mundane things.

Rick, who spent most of his time by himself before the group found him, is used to the peace of boredom and the solitude. He never goes out of his way to seek people because he feels he wouldn’t be wanted. Somehow, for some reason, it's the others that always gravitate towards him, be it Lori or Negan or Michonne or Maggie. Maybe they sense his emotions or maybe he’s their last resort next to boredom. Rick’s mind wanders a lot on that matter, but they’ll never be a sure answer as he’s too afraid to ask.

Much to Negan’s surprise, and perhaps his dismay, the topic of hobbies gets brought up. Of talents and past times and passion.

With so much time and so much leeway and no set societal course to follow, what is there to do now but what you love or what you most sincerely want to do? Nothing much is the answer- and that’s why Negan lays around in solitude most of the time. But while Negan isn’t so sure he’s ready to face his own truths, Rick throws himself head first into anything that makes his brain quirk. He tells Negan he ‘wants to have a foot in every pie’, that he wants to do and be everything he’s always wanted to be. Negan doesn’t have the heart to tell him its  _ finger  _ in every pie, nor does he have the heart to tell Rick that being something doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Deep down he knows he’s gravely wrong, and deep down inside of him something goes alight whenever he sees Rick so enraptured by his new weekly obsession.

Rick gets into baking (thanks to Carol) the first week, goes through two books a day the next week- sometimes three depending on the thickness, discovers poetry the next, and now painting.

The week Rick becomes set on being a painter is the week things become physical between Rick and Negan. Seeing Rick smudged with splotches of paint from head to toe, coloring the denim he wore and hardening his chunks of curls, is like seeing a piece of art in itself, and Negan curses himself for thinking so sappily. Who the fuck is he now? Rick has made him soft in all the right ways. 

During painter week, Negan is under the influence of boredom and desire to ogle a pretty face and nice body when he goes down to the basement. As he enters, all the remnants of Rick’s past objectives lay on the floor in forms of cookbooks and novels and poetry. So much paper and so many words to read through. Just thinking about it gives Negan a headache, and he wonders how thick a book of a day of his thoughts would be. 

Music is playing down in the basement. That’s one of the constants amidst Rick’s shuffling interests. Every single song Rick hears he instantly likes, and Negan knows that he’s being earnest when he says so, even if it is weird. But at least the boy has taken a longing towards more modern stuff- if the eighties and nineties genres can be considered modern-thanks to Negan’s record ransack at the mall. He says he likes the Cocteau Twins records the most because he can’t understand what they’re saying so he’s therefore forced to judge solely on the music. That made Negan laugh when Rick first told him that, and now everytime he listens to the Cocteau Twins he can’t help but smile as he reflects on Rick’s word.

Rick is on his knees in front of a giant canvas. The same canvas Negan spent all of yesterday helping him gesso. He still has the white streaks on his jeans as evidence, and he looks down at them subconsciously as he meets Rick’s side.

The boy feels his presence and looks up at Negan, wiping his forehead with the back of his brush wielding hand as he gives a dopey smile.

As the familiar unintelligible vocals caress the room, Negan finds himself smiling too. 

“Painting is hard,” Rick says, first and foremost. He shrugs as he turns back to his makeshift palette, picking some paint up on his brush, “I like the colors though.”

Negan breathes a laugh, smiling slightly. “I read this short story once about a girl who got a job watching film reels of the moon and writing down changes, right?”

“Right.”

“And she got so bored having to watch these long ass reels, so she started drawing on the paper she was supposed to be taking notes on,” Negan continues, “But one day while she’s drawing her boss comes in and sees her slacking and she thinks she’s in some shit but he just brushes it off, right?”

“Right.”

“And then a few days later, he calls the girl outside to his truck and he pulls out some of his own drawings and he’s like really fucking good or whatever. But then he starts telling her how it's no good to be an artist and how he practiced hours at a time so he could draw like Michelangelo, and then he said, and I remember this like so fucking clearly: ‘ _ Then what? There’s already a Michelangelo. There was nothing more to do. _ ’”

Rick furrows his brows. “That’s sad,” he says, “that probably really discouraged that girl.”

Negan shrugs. “It’s just a story, Rick. It's not really real.”

“I’ll rewrite that story,” Rick muses, turning back to his canvas and smearing a poorly mixed shade of peach onto the smooth gesso, “ _ After _ I become better than Michelangelo.”

“Do you even know who Michelangelo is?”

“Nope.”

Negan laughs, nose scrunching up because Rick is so shameless.

The rest of the week goes on the same way, with Rick being a painter and Negan dropping in to keep him company, and then going back upstairs to give him some space. Even if Rick had spent most of his life in solitude, he finds he still very much enjoys it. Knowing in the back of his mind that he was allowed to live life by his own free will made alone time feel that much sweeter.

What follows Rick’s painting era is a surprise to Rick himself, but then again not really. He felt it building slowly but surely between he and Negan.

Perfectly, routinely, and like working by the phases of the moon, Negan goes down into the basement on a Sunday evening, bringing with him a plate stacked high with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a tall glass of milk for them to share. This is normal, their nightly ritual. 

They’d spend the late hours of the evening sitting on the floor and eating and talking and listening to music until they got tired and eventually one of them fell asleep, leaving the other with no choice but to follow suit. But today, all it took was one little thing to make it all different. 

“You got, you got a little something right there,” Rick says, interrupting whatever Negan had been talking about to reach out and swipe his thumb across Negan’s bottom lip, wiping away the stray smear of peanut butter, and quickly licking it off the digit without a second thought. 

Negan’s eyes never leave Rick the entire time, and he almost feels wronged. How can Rick do something so sinful, yet be too sweet and pure to even realize it? Before Negan can stop himself, he kisses Rick, fast like a peck but heavy with longing, and Rick has the guts to look all the while shell shocked when Negan pulls away.

“What was that for?” He asks.

“You’re sexy as shit, you know that?” Negan huffs, “You drive me fucking  _ crazy _ .” With the help of Rick’s furrowed eyebrows, Negan can already see Rick stammer out a sheepish  _ me? _ before the boy can even think to say it. So to save time he pushes Rick’s messy palette and their crumb ridden plate to the side and says, “Fucking kiss me.”

Rick doesn’t put up a fight because he doesn’t want to. He lets Negan on top of him, let’s lips unravel him, and on the slightly cold concrete of the basement floor Rick is deflowered by a blowjob where Negan’s hands are wrapped thickly around his lower back for comfort and support, and Rick’s fingers twitch and tremble with their vice like grip on Negan’s stringy black hair. 

Negan swallows down his cum and pulls off, wiping his shiny swollen mouth on the back of his hand before he leans further into Rick for more languid kisses.

He tastes tangy and like Negan, Rick notes, and he can’t get enough of the way their mouths sway and sway. But eventually their lips move slower, until they come to an idle stop and Negan stuffs Rick’s cock back in his underwear and strips him of his jeans so he’s more comfortable.

Rick falls asleep with Negan’s arm around his neck, tugging Rick deeper into his chest as they slowly sink into sleep, not too many words exchanged between the two of them, but the air that spaces them out feels so full and content. 

Negan wakes up first and he just lays there quietly, letting Rick breathe on him, feeling his body inhale and exhale until the pattern hiccups and Rick is awake again. But he stays quiet too- why, he’s not so sure, but it feels like a sin for such tranquility to be broken. Negan’s fingers in his hair serve as a silent hello, and Rick’s finger twirling around the fabric of Negan’s shirt works as a hello back. 

They lie there for what feels like hours, and if Rick closes his eyes for long enough, grounding himself to the solidness beneath him, he swears he can feel the word tilting on its axis so incredibly slowly. He swears when he opens his eyes again he’s going to be facing a completely different direction of the room, like he’s the minute arm on a clock. However, each time he looks, he’s in same spot. 

A moment later they hear the faint sound of life upstairs; of Tara speaking loudly and Michonne cackling laughter at whatever's coming over here. It’s then that Negan moves, and when he leaves Rick, it’s without a spare word or glance, just a casual saunter up the stairs.

Rick watches him leave with nothing hurting inside of him. Rick knows he’s coming back. He doesn’t need words to know that. Maybe it’ll take some time, but Rick knows he’ll be here by the time the sun falls away and the moon creeps up into the sky. He knows they’ll fall asleep together again. Hopefully not on the floor this time, Rick thinks, as he sits up with an ache in his back.

-

“I can still feel you on me.”

“Really? How?”

Negan puffs a smelly smoke cloud into the air, and it’s stark against the rich black blue of the sky. Rick doesn’t like the sight of it, but the smell of it is strong and warm and it sits just fine in the pits of his stomach. 

“If I think about it long enough, I can still feel your mouth,” Rick says, eyes flickering towards the side of Negan’s cool face, “Your breath.”

Crickets chirp mindfully as Negan responds with silence and another drag. Behind them the door to the house creaks open, and a blonde head peeks out.

“We’re gonna watch a movie,” Andrea says, looking curiously between the two boys, “You two wanna join?”

Rick looks over at Negan for an answer. 

“Sure,” Negan says, “Just let me finish this,” he gestures to the joint between his fingers. 

Andrea rolls her eyes. 

“Kay. Hurry up.”

The door closes shut and their privacy is returned. 

Rick turns back to Negan, Negan is still in the same offish position he’s always been in. 

“Was that the first time you’ve done that to a boy?” A gust of wind surges past them, swaying Negan’s hair and making his eyes blink, serving to prove Negan isn’t some sort of inanimate figure, and that he’s there and he’s not frozen in time no matter how much the boy wishes not to be present.

“Sober, yeah.”

“Oh,” Rick says as he looks down, and he wonders what sort of substances Negan must’ve been on and how much he had to take before he decided he was inebriated enough to be with a boy. The thought saddens him deeply, and his voice conveys that as he asks, “Do you regret it?”

Negan can’t be too sure if Rick means his drunken gayness or his sober gayness, but he takes a guess. Rick has asked him this question before, and the answer is still the same. 

“No.”

Negan finally looks over, and just in time. He catches the way Rick’s lips quirk up in a faint smile, much richer in emotion than it looks. Their eyes lock, soft but sure, and Rick’s breath gets caught in his throat, his smile falling. 

The joint between Negan’s fingers gets stubbed away, and Rick’s cheek gets caressed by a wary hand. Rick closes his eyes. Negan leans in to kiss him, and he tastes funny but that’s okay; Rick wants him more than anything.

Andrea’s offer of a movie becomes forgotten, and Rick becomes acquainted with a grassy path that takes him to a cellar door, leading him down into an all too familiar place with an all too familiar couch.

And familiarity is so comforting, and so is Negan even when he doesn’t speak. The things they’re doing aren’t familiar, but Rick knows soon they will be. Just like how the people upstairs used to frighten him, and now they don’t. Just like how everything bad disintegrates away with time and the memory of pain becomes so far away as you begin to age. 

Rick can hardly remember his mother’s voice. He never knew his father’s, couldn’t recognize it in a crowd, or rummage up the memory of it in his brain.

_ What is growing up? _ Rick has always wondered. 

Maybe it’s about forgiving pain, but never forgetting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u alll for reading!!! i hope u enjoyed n as always feedback n constructive criticism r more than welcome!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mood: reflection after jane by the clientele

What do you hold to your side when it all goes downward? Negan’s trying to figure out what he has as an option and what he doesn’t. It would be unfair to count Rick, seeing as he’s human. He wasn’t made to be a comfort for Negan’s sake.

“I need you two to go out and get me some supplies,” Siddiq says, looking to both Rick and Negan, his gaze holding something extra for the latter, “If we’re lucky the hospital still has everything that we need for an at home birth.”

He hands Negan a list, handwritten as if he’s sending Negan grocery shopping, and Negan eyes it with wary.

_ Oxygen _

_ IVs _

_ Sterilized gauze _

_ Suture kit _

A few more things that sound foreign and complicated and so on and so forth.

Negan takes a breath. He imagines all these things being used for horrible reasons. He imagines all these things being used to try and bring back Lori, gauze soaked in blood and pale sweaty skin. He imagines babies frail and vulnerable and so cold, hooked up to oxygen they can’t even breathe in.

“You know how to use all this stuff?” Negan asks.

Siddiq’s deep brown eyes are round and unwavering.

“Yes,” he says with a single nod. It's hard not to believe such an earnest man. In that moment he looks three times his age. In that moment Negan realizes he doesn’t even know Siddiq’s age.

“Rosita’s been picking up some things, becoming more hands on with the whole pregnancy thing. Her mother used to be a midwife- she’s teaching me things I never knew,” Siddiq continues, “Carol and Maggie have been preparing for this, too. Shane. Glenn as well. She’s not alone in this, Negan.”

Negan’s face is stiff and dire.

“But when she’s dead- when she’s dying, she’s gonna be the only one  _ then _ , right? She’s gonna be alone. She’s gonna be the only one feeling pain, the only one leaving  _ here _ , and she’s gonna be all fucking alone. Is that what you want?”

Siddiq is not affected by his intimidation. Rick clutches his hand harshly.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Rick says, stern as he looks up at Negan. He sees the vulnerability hiding behind the shiny viscous fluid of the angry tears in his eyes, “She’s our friend.”

Two weeks ago it would’ve been  _ she’s my friend _ , but two weeks ago is not today and it doesn’t take long for bonds to form, especially not with their situation. Negan has become just as fond of Lori as Rick has, as everyone has. He just tries not to make it too evident because he doesn’t want to seem weak or stupid should anything happen to her. Rick knows.

“If she goes,” Siddiq says after a thick pause, “Or if the babies go. Then so will I.”

It's not a suicidal remark. Nor is it a remark of ego or pride. But of spirit. 

The twins in that belly, and the vessel that holds them are more than what they seem to be. Lori and those babies stand for so much more, and human life is already precious enough in any general sense.

If anyone should go, all of their group will go down with them.

-

The hospital is white and pristine. Like the skin under Rick’s t-shirt after a good shower, only Rick’s skin is porcelain and he doesn’t smell like antibacterial. He smells warm.

But Negan’s lost his scent in the giant vat of the hospitals stench and in the rustling of his bottomless thoughts. He wonders if he’ll still enjoy Rick’s scent after everything is said and done. Maybe he won’t even enjoy anything after this.

He’s been walking ahead for a while, leading (or rather, ignoring) the boy that trails behind, when his hand is suddenly enveloped by another, fingers locking with Negan’s lax ones. Though they don’t stay lax for long.

Rick’s touch makes Negan release a tense breath stuck inside of him, and his hitched shoulders become at ease. His mind still runs, but now his heart races to match, and he knows that whatever Rick is to him is something he doesn’t want to lose.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Rick says, and his fingers circle around Negan’s wrist to pull him to a light stop.

Negan’s body complies without knowing, but he gives Rick a look equivalent to a scoff. “Take a break? We haven’t even been doing shit. We’re just walking the fuck around trying to figure out where we are.”

“We have all day, Negan.” He reasons, “She’s not giving birth that soon.”

“Yeah? How do you know that?”

“I don’t.”

Negan bites the inside of his cheek, looking up at Rick with petulant eyes, flared with his less than menacing eyelashes. He is harshness lined with grace. A practicing man, young like a child.

“Have you eaten today?” Rick asks. His voice is softer, and his gaze was never one to stray from his tone.

Negan moves away from his gentle stare, squirming against it.

“I’m not hungry,” he says.

That’s an edgy way of saying no. 

“C’mon,” Rick sighs, gripping Negan’s hand tighter as he pulls the boy in the other direction.

“Do you even know where you’re taking me?”

“Yes,” Rick says, “I was here once. For my nose.”

“And you remember where everything is?”

“No, but I know how to read a sign.”

Negan smirks at his tone.

“I don’t like this newfound attitude on you, Ricky,” he teases, slipping his fingers free from Rick’s grip.

“Oh, you don’t?”

“No,” Negan says, tucking his hand into the back pocket of Rick’s worn jeans and giving him a playful squeeze, “I fucking love it.”

Rick chuckles and it's warm and sustaining, clinging to every skim patch in Negan’s soul. He still blushes every time Negan flirts with him, still goes insanely speechless whenever Negan touches him, and they’ve been doing these things and more for quite some time already. They’ve slipped quite close together because of it, and now they’re never not touching each other, even if all that can suffice is fingertip to fingertip. 

Negan wonders if they’ll ever slip out of that. He hopes it isn’t just a phase. He hopes one day Rick won’t get used to touches and sigh in annoyance whenever Negan wraps an arm around his shoulder, or hooks a leg over his hip in bed. Of course he wants familiarity, but he wants that exhilaration to stay too. He wants surprise and spontaneity- and who knows if that can still

exist in this era of the world. 

-

It can exist, Negan finds out, after Rick shoves him onto the nearest hospital bed and takes him from the top. Time gets easily lost now just as it had in the past when everything went a hundred miles per hours, only it’s so quiet now. Rick tells him soft stories about his once upon a time injured nose and how the most pain he ever had was getting stitches because of his fall, and how it made his eyes water. Negan says he’s lucky that’s the most pain he’s ever felt, and Rick goes quiet. 

He turns in Negan’s hold so he can see his face. Of course, Negan is looking up at the ceilIng. he’s predictable in that way, but Rick doesn’t mind. He reaches a knuckle out and strokes it against the growing stubble along his jaw. Negan stays still and unbothered, though his eyelids do flutter as he fights the comfort of Rick’s touch. Rick tugs lightly at his hair, a gesture asking Negan to avert his attention towards him. 

“Hmm?” Negan hums in response, and Rick can see how his eyes shift under the skin of his eyelids.

“Do you have any good memories? Any happy ones?”   
Negan’s brows furrow. “Of my family?”

“Just in general,” Rick says.

“Of course,” Negan says, and his voice has this intensity that comes from being confused, “Of course I do.”

Rick is happy to hear this answer. Most of the time when Negan talks, or when he so much as just stands there idle, he looks sad. He looks like he smokes cigarettes outside of a twentieth floor balcony and sulks at gray skies while he drinks lukewarm black coffee. So Rick’s glad to hear there are moments in Negan’s life where maybe he didn’t look or feel sullen. Rick wishes that he himself had his own happy memories to look back on, but everything before Negan and the others was gray and dormant, going to show that there truly cannot be good without bad. 

Rick snuggles closer into Negan, until he can feel Negan’s pulse against the tip of his nose and smell the faint remnants of cologne on his scratchy throat. 

“Like what?” He asks warmly, latching onto Negan like he’s the heat radiating off of a fireplace, awaiting his voice like the soft crackles of firewood, “Tell me some.”

“You really wanna hear about ‘em? They’re fucking boring.”   
Rick rolls his eyes, “I’m the  _ king _ of boring, Negan. Remember?”

Negan huffs a breathy laugh, moving his head to kiss whatever part of Rick is closest. It just so happens to be his temple. When he settles back onto the pillow, he sighs out, wracking his brain for a good anecdote to tell Rick. It takes him a moment, but he finds one.

“I think it was around my Freshman year of highschool, and uh… my friend, I think his name was Simon or something,” Negan knows for sure his name was Simon, he doesn’t know why he pretends he doesn’t, “He had a really big house, like fucking huge... bigger than yours even, and we had just become friends so everything was new and exciting. Kinda like when you first get into a relationship and you think your boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever has the sun shining outta their ass, you know what I mean?”

Does Rick know what he means? He’s never been in a relationship. Or so he thinks.

“Anyways, I thought Simon was the coolest funniest dude ever and he had the latest PlayStation and Amazon prime and all that. His parents were really nice to me, treated me like their own fucking son,” Negan clears his throat, “and uhm, I don’t have a specific memory to tell you about, but just… those times as a whole. When Simon had his old room, from the end of my eighth grade year to the middle of our Freshmen year, and his TV was right in front of his bed and he had these lights in his room that were colorful as fuck. We’d stay up until like four am, and I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet but everything gets funnier after midnight for some reason.”

Rick nods at this, agreeing with a fond smile, “It does.”

Negan thinks Rick’s sweetness is infectious, but not enough to infiltrate the gloom Negan feels as he looks at the sad contrast between the highs of this one pure and genuine set of memories he speaks of and the lows of everything else in his life. His lips twitch with a smile, but in the end it fails to become anything. 

“And then… Simon got a new room, on the other side of his house and- and things just didn't feel the fucking same as before. I don’t fucking know why.” 

Maybe it had to do with the fact that this happened around the same time that Negan’s Dad relapsed from his sobriety as well as the anniversary of Negan’s mom leaving. Maybe. 

Once his father’s violence returned, all the hope that the happiness of those sleepovers brought seemed to disintegrate away over time. Because no matter the situation, Negan had hope. Hope that one day his Dad would rehabilitate enough to love him like Simon’s parents love Simon. That his Dad would get a better job, maybe give him a nice stepmom and move him into a house as nice as Simon’s.

All these daydreams, all these fantasies, these beautiful yet fabricated vehicles of hope, all ruined by the smell of alcohol on his father’s breath as he walked through the front door. 

Simon’s new room was just the cherry on top. The metaphor for a lesser beginning. 

One place with good memories torn away. 

Negan eventually stopped going to sleepovers at Simon’s. 

“Now you sleepover at my house,” Rick says, pointedly. He smirks, tracing his finger along the corner of Negan’s jaw.

Negan forgets the dark memories for a moment and actually huffs a laugh. Rick is contagious.

“Yeah I do, and your lumpy ass couch is giving me fibromyalgia.”

Rick snorts into Negan’s neck and Negan cringes at how his breath and his big nose tickles his skin. But he smiles. And he loves Rick, and everything feels perfect in the second he realizes that.

-

Lori gives birth on August the 24th.

She’s walking down the stairs as best as she can with the giant weight of the unborn in her front, and Rick is trailing patiently behind her.

She had smelled the pb&j on Rick’s breath after he had just gotten done having his nightly ritual with Negan and decided she’d wanted one herself. Rick had a feeling he shouldn’t let her go by herself, and thank God he hadn’t, despite her many protests.

Lori stops moving in front of him, and Rick, who wasn’t paying much attention, nearly knocked into her.

_ Why’d you stop? _ Are the words on Rick’s tongue, but the sight of a very intimidating wet patch growing dark on Lori’s jeans is answer enough.

Suddenly Rick’s throat has gone dry, but he manages to let out a plea of “Please please  _ please _ tell me that’s pee..”

Lori doesn’t answer, but lets out a pained groan, trying to fold in on herself although her belly doesn’t let her.

“It hurts,” she says through gritted teeth, one hand white knuckling the handrail mounted on the wall, “ _ Ah!  _ God it fucking hurts!” 

Rick’s mouth hangs open, his brain unable to fathom that this is really happening right now.

“Let’s- lets go back upstairs, we can… we can get you in a room.”

She shakes her head vigorously, “I don’t wanna move, I’m,” her breath shudders, and Rick can almost see the way tears threaten to fall though she isn’t even looking at him, “I don’t wanna walk, I-I’m scared-  _ ow! _ ”

“Okay, okay! Um, I can- I can carry you, don’t worry.”

That remains a good idea for all of the five seconds before Rick realizes Lori is a human with two babies inside of her and she’s heavy.

Then he panics, and finally remembers he and Lori are not the only people in this house. But he calls out to the wrong one.

“Negan!”

The boy is out of the basement in a matter of seconds, and when he sees Rick attempting to lug Lori up the stairs by the crook of her armpits, immediately he knows.

And it goes from Rick yelling for Negan to Negan yelling for Siddiq who comes stumbling out of a bedroom, weary and puffy from sleep.

His brown eyes pop under the gleam of sudden adrenaline, and he springs into action as though it’s reflex.

-

Everyone gathers around Lori as she contracts, and while it’s not the best idea no one takes that into consideration because they can’t believe what’s happening. 

Lori feels dizzy from the pain, and from the shock. She thinks about how she got here, lying on Rick’s parents bed and huffing through contractions, and how she can’t take any part of it back. With the pain constricting her pelvis and her lower back, she momentarily wishes she could. But the flesh mountain in front of her eyes, the lovely view she got to wake up to every morning for months, reminds her.

She looks over at Rick and he’s already staring back at her with his large innocent eyes, the blue looking too blue. He looks scared. Negan stands behind him, his fist clenching onto the envelope of Rick’s back pocket, dark eyes distant as they hone in on Siddiq.

She reaches for Rick’s hand, and his eyes go wider when they feel how sweaty her palms are. She feels guilty knowing she’s causing all these changes about his face, and it almost stops her from saying what she says next.

“If it comes down to it,” she begins, “Save the babies, okay? Promise me you’ll save the babies.” Rick’s mouth goes agape.

Lori was looking at him while she said it, but it was a message made for everyone. She said it loud enough for everyone to hear. And after her words are out, everything goes still.

Negan leaves the room, face hidden. Rick looks back at him, watching as he turns the corner, unsure of what to do. He looks back at Lori, confused horror written all about the wrinkling of his expression.

“What? You- you can’t..”

“ _ If _ ,” she reminds, “If it happens, it's them, okay? I’m not afraid.”

Oh, but she is. 

Siddiq is tense, shoulders nearly grazing his cheeks with the amount of responsibility laid upon them. Maybe his hands shake as he positions Lori’s legs into the stirrups. His brown skin is noticably paler. 

Lucille places her hand on the back of his head, slightly cradling, trying to comfort. It's not entirely futile, but still Siddiq says, “Everyone, if I’m going to do my best, I need you all out of here. Rosita, Shane, you two stay. Rick, go find Negan.”

-

Rick finds Negan a block away, sitting on the curbside just beneath a streetlight. When he gets closer, he notices that Negan’s crying silently, tears streaming slowly and casually down his cheeks as he looks blankly forward. 

The sight brings pain to Rick, and he sits as close to Negan as he can possibly get, laying his sorry head against the boy’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, and Rick feels like that is such a stupid question in the light of things. But it isn’t.

“I wish I weren’t here right now,” Negan admits, voice vulnerable and nearly broken. Rick has never heard Negan sound like this so openly. It’s almost as if he’s desperate. Rick, however, is not sure for what. 

“But you  _ are _ here,” Rick says softly, “You’re supposed to be here.”

To that, Negan just cries some more. Rick wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in closer.

“C’mon,” Rick coaxes after a long and dwelling moment, “Let’s go back.” It surprises Rick how easily Negan complies. 

They sneak back into the basement through the cellar door. Negan blocks out the muffled cries of Lori’s pain. It feels wrong to go to sleep at a time like this, they almost feel guilty at how easy it comes. But Rick puts on Negan’s favorite song by The Clientele and he sits on the couch tucked under Rick’s arm, his head on Rick’s shoulder and Rick’s curly head on Negan’s, and soon they slip away. 

Negan dreams he’s the only one left on the planet.

-

Negan wakes up alone, and that immediately makes a panic settle upon him. He hears laughter and chatter from upstairs, but that only half soothes him as he thinks back on the events of the previous day. He goes to the source of the sounds, mostly searching for Rick. He finds him next to Shane- Shane who is holding a baby wrapped in pink. Rick ogles the bundle in his hands with utter infatuation. Next to Shane is Rosita, who holds a matching baby wrapped in blue. Tara is a mirror of Rick, eyes glistening with mirth as she smiles at the small bundle.

_ But where’s Siddiq? Where’s Lori? _

Rick looks up, sees Negan standing shell shocked in the corner, and offers a soothing smile in his direction. “Come here,” he says, “Come look at the babies.”

Negan shakes his head, throat tight.

“Where’s Siddiq?” He asks, panic seeping through, volume rising, “Where’s- where’s Lori?”

Andrea shushes him.

“She’s in the room behind you, sleeping,” she answers, “I don’t know about you but  _ I  _ wouldnt want to be the sorryass who wakes up a woman who just in labor for twelve hours.”

“Siddiq went to the bathroom,” Lucille adds, she sees the fear in his eyes and its half laughable half concerning, “Numbnuts.”

Negan scans over everyone, eyes wide as he searches for confirmation.

“She’s okay?? She’s not…?”   
No one lets him finish that sentence.

“No,” Michonne assures firmly, “She lost a fair amount of blood, but luckily Rosita is the same type as her.”

“And she’s always been a very generous lover,” Tara chimes in, to which Michonne rolls her eyes. 

Rosita smirks. “What can I say?” She shrugs, “I’m like a finely oiled slurpee machine.”

Negan takes notices of the bandage in the crook of her arm.

“Come,” Lucille says, repeating Ricks earlier invitation, “Come meet them.”

Negan goes ever, hesitantly. He’s afraid if he gets too close they’ll disappear. That they’ll all disappear, and he’ll end up like he was in his dream: alone.

“This is Carl,” Tara introduces as Rosita tilts her arms a bit to show him, “Say hi, Carl! Say hi! Hi! No? Not yet? Alright.” Everyone gives her a look. “What?” She says, “Startin’ em early.”

“Just because you started speaking at two months doesn’t mean everyone else will,” Noah quips.

Tara purses her lips. 

Negan tries to let their banter calm him.

“And this is Judith,” Rick says, gesturing towards the baby Shane stares wonderlessly at.

They babies look identical. Fresh and soft with wispy hair, eyes puffy and shut in slumber, skin pink and new. They look so fragile and perfect, almost like dolls, but Negan knows they’re real as Judith’s nose twitches in her sleep. He could almost cry they’re so beautiful and already so loved.

Everything is okay, he realizes, and he can finally breathe for the first time in nearly eighteen years.

Lori is here and healthy, and so are her babies. They’re named Carl and Judith, and they, along with this burgeoning group of teens, are the new world. Negan is so happy he feels like weeping, and maybe he does. Maybe he pulls Rick into a hug and smiles and laughs through the hiccups of his tears. What a beautiful family, he thinks, all of them together. They’re the family he’s always wanted, all surrounding him at last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this is it yall.....like rlly truly it for me and im kinda rlly sad. ive had the hardest time writing this bc of everything that has happened to me this summer but iwanted to finish this before i left for college as a sort of ending of a very awesome era of my life. i think this will be my last regan fic.. :( makes me so sad to say that lmao!!! but i rlly wanna focus on my own original writing now which btw i hav to thank u all for being so nice and encouraging n complimenting me n my writing bc i realized writing is something i love to do, am more than decent at, and want to do for the rest of my life. i wrote milk n honey when i was 16........ lol lame huh HAHAH ... finished it when id just turned 17... wrote ivy when i was in my own senior year of high skool .... n now im actually goint to college lol.... yall have seene me grow thru my writing isnt that weird????? but i love yall forever and im eternally grateful to yall for reading my shit SO THANK YALL FOR READING I HOPE YOU ENJOYED AND AS ALWAYS FEEDBACK N CONTSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ARE MORE THAN WELCOME


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